Grand Prairie Participates in Red Ribbon Week

Red Ribbon Week is a drug, alcohol, and violence prevention awareness campaign which takes place in October all across American schools. Well received by students and guardians alike, Red Ribbon Week helps those easily influenced to take the right steps into adolescence and let it lead to a more respectable life. It leads them to the right path in, hopefully, the rest of their godforsaken lives. Although the history of the event is very violent and in some way chaotic, the purpose has been and will remain an effort to support the war against drugs.

“I think Red Ribbon Week is great, maybe not so much success in the operation, but some so take it very serious and it seems to change the way they view life as they go,” junior John Steimos said. With a insignificant success rate, Red Ribbon Week, along with the National Drug Control Strategy, spent more than 1 billion dollars solely on education and treatment research. The hope was that the education provided by this campaign can both decrease the amount of people using drugs and the amount of money being spent on the war against drugs. By teaching people what drugs do, they’ll be more open to avoiding them. Seeing the effects could make them value the money that they have without spending it on something that ruins their future.

“Red Ribbon Week teaches basic economics. Drugs cost money, violence costs opportunities. When we’re little we think that a dollar is a big deal, so we see 20 dollars and we feel rich. We learn not to spend it on something so pointless and just brain rotting,” senior Victor Chavira said

The history of Red Ribbon Week is somewhat inhumane. It started with a DEA agent known as Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. Camarena worked 4 years for Guadalajara, Mexico undercover, leading to a tip which led to the discovery of a multimillion-dollar narcotics manufacturing operation in Chihuahua, Mexico. Unfortunately, Camarena and his pilot, Captain Alfredo Zavala-Avelar were kidnapped the same day on separate occasions. Once the bodies were found, the autopsy was released, revealing that Camarena had been tortured before he was murdered. There were audio tapes in which they discovered the kidnappers had medical doctors present as they performed the heinous crime, ensuring they wouldn’t die as they elongated their pain. After the men were found murdered, citizens in Camarena's hometown of Calexico, California donned red ribbons in his honor.

For years to come, multiple organizations displayed the red ribbon for respects to the Camarena family, and slowly gaining the attention of important people. From these clubs emerged the Red Ribbon Week campaign, and during the administration of President Bill Clinton, it grew into a nationwide service effort to fight drugs and wage war against youth violence and abuse.

“I think Red Ribbon Week helps, maybe not as much as it’s praised for, but I bet 50% of the kids remember this week when their friends are smoking pot,” Sophomore Cameron Diaz said.