“Safe and Sober Week” was ineffective and a complete joke because students are going to forget everything they “learned” and they most likely didn’t care. Sure, they get informed about the dangers and consequences that follow if they make poor choices when it comes to drinking but it’s not going to completely brain-wash them into becoming the perfect, sober teenager all adults want. It seems as if adults actually believe that all adolescents do is party and take every drug they can get their hands on, when that is not the case whatsoever. To me, it now just looks like it was a waste of time, and possibly even money, since the students on campus don’t seem to be benefiting from these drug-free programs.

Last week, students participated in various activities during lunch that were supposed to educate them on what impaired driving may cause and even heard stories from a few guest speakers that hopefully emotionally impacted them. To top it off, not all students actually were aware of the fact that it was “Safe and Sober Week” which only supports the idea that they didn’t seem to care about what was going on.

It is so surprising to see how much schools advocate sober lifestyles when most students don’t even drink at all. A new survey has revealed that 3 out of 4 (77%) high school students don’t drink alcohol (retrieved from Madd – Most Teens Don’t Drink Alcohol, 2013). Yeah sure, it may help them in the future, but it’s not helpful if it is being shoved down their throat. Then it becomes repetitive, which gets VERY annoying.

What was most commonly seen during the week, was the use of scare tactics, a method used in attempt to create fear and just hope that the fear itself will prevent students from drinking. First of all, scare tactics are inefficient in various ways and one of them being that students will only dismiss the message they are given and think, “that will never happen to me!” as a defense to fear. Also, teenage brain development is obviously different from adults so they will not interpret the tactics the same way and do no acquire enough life experience to assimilate the information.

However, the school did a better job at inviting better guest speakers this year, such as someone whose experience happened locally and in our neighboring city of Chino Hills. Kudos to him for actually having an impact on some students and being more modern at explaining to the students what it’s like to endure such a trauma. If more speakers like him are brought to the school, then I think it could possibly be a big step towards an improvement in encouraging sober lifestyles.

Schools need to improve their drug-free programs and events or else they should just completely put an end to them because they are definitely not working for students. Teenagers are constantly told the same exact things since elementary school and it has become so repetitive to the point that it’s boring. These programs are not taken seriously anymore and has only made them dread participating or attending events that contain these drug-free speeches and activities.

It’s true, us teenagers are full of ourselves but we actually have potential and common sense unlike other previous generations. Adolescents of today know the consequences and are capable of making the right decisions, something adults don’t think about. I just hope schools can understand their students better and can grasp their attention the right way if they want us show a bit of interest in their weekly events of better lifestyles and decision-making.