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; Other lessons deal with the illusory highs and long-term dangers of drug usage. One lesson is devoted specifically to "ways to say no"; suggestions range from "broken record" (saying "no thanks" over and over) to "cold shoulder" (simply ignoring the invitation). Late in the semester, officers bring in junior high and high school students who have resisted drug temptation to answer questions from sixth-graders like "Do you end up without friends if you don't use drugs?"
Whether such programs can fulfill the high hopes they are arousing will take years to determine. But educational programs must be central to any attack on drug abuse. As Tom Adams, national director of the Just Say No program, puts it, perhaps with some hyperbole, "The kids under ten in this country are the only group in which nonuse of drugs and alcohol and tobacco is the norm." The challenge is to keep them free of drugs as they enter the temptation-ridden teens.