WESTERN BUREAU — More than 200 students from schools across Montego Bay turned out for an anti-drug road show by the National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) at Sam Sharpe Square yesterday.

The show that saw students from the various schools performing skits, poems and songs promoting the anti-drug theme, was the third in a series of road shows under ‘Project Squeaky’, which was launched in January this year.

The NCDA’s director of information and research, Ellen Campbell-Grizzle, said that over the last three months $1 million has been spent on the project, aimed at educating the youth on the dangers of drugs via entertainment.

“It’s an initiative for low-level illiteracy youth. We have road shows, workshops and work with the most vulnerable young people in the society to keep them away from drugs,” said Campbell-Grizzle. “It has a lot of excitement and sensation to it. It’s what young people like. Sensation doesn’t have to be bad. What we are doing is crafting it to be good and to exert positive peer pressure.”

Road shows have already been held in Kingston, May Pen and Whitehouse. Barbican will be the next stop on World No Tobacco Day, May 31.

“We are working at a higher drumbeat, so to speak, in the society now. We know that we must compete with the other noises out there and we must get their attention first.

So this is one of the innovations of this project…,” Campbell-Grizzle told the Observer.

Meanwhile, the youngsters welcomed yesterday’s road show, listened intently to the performances of their peers and, at times, joined in.

“It gets the attention of the children. If you get their attention you can penetrate (their minds) and give them the message,” Campbell-Grizzle said.

At the same time, chairman of the Western Regional Health Authority, Gordon Brown, who was also present at yesterday’s show, urged the youngsters to stay clear of drugs. He said that despite the term drug abuse, drugs could not be the victim of abuse, only people.

“Boys and girls… drug doesn’t have feelings, you do. Drugs don’t have parents, you do. Drugs don’t have any money but one day you might. And drugs don’t have life but God has blessed you all with beautiful lives,” he said.

He added: “So when you think you are abusing drugs, you can’t really abuse them. You can only abuse yourself and abuse people who love you and you abuse the gifts which God has given you,” he said.

Project Squeaky will continue over the next two months and Campbell-Grizzle said the expectation was that an additional three-quarter of a million dollars would be spent on the project.