Drug-Free ‘Club’ Proposed for Antelope Valley Youths

An Antelope Valley community activist is lining up political and business leaders behind a proposed anti-drug program, the first of its kind in California, in which merchants would give discounts and other rewards to young people who do not use illegal drugs and submit to random urine tests to prove it.

The man behind the program--which has stirred controversy in other states--is Billy Pricer, a retired sheriff’s deputy and minister who has founded several volunteer programs to combat fast-growing gang and drug problems in the high desert.

“There is such a thing as positive peer pressure and I believe this will help the kids,” Pricer said. “For once we are targeting the kids that are making an honest effort to keep their lives clean.”

A wide range of Antelope Valley leaders--including city council members, developers and law enforcement officials--are working with Pricer to raise funds and recruit businesses to participate. The program is modeled on Drug Free Youth, which began in Texas three years ago and now includes 16,000 students in four states, according to its founders.

There have been no such programs in California, according to Bob Diguchi of the state Office of Criminal Justice Planning in Sacramento.

In Texas’ Smith County, teen-agers who submit to the voluntary drug tests with parental consent are issued a photo identification card that brings them price reductions of up to 50% at movie theaters and other businesses, as well as help in getting summer jobs. Parties and other activities celebrate their membership in what amounts to a drug-free “club.”

The program is administered by a board of directors--including representatives of law enforcement, schools, medical community and others--and works with a student advisory board.

About 93% of the students at Whitehouse High School outside Tyler, Tex. belong to the program, and the T-shirts and identification cards are a familiar sight around town, said Whitehouse counselor Mary Beth Fitzgerald.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said April Foscue, a 17-year-old Whitehouse senior who signed up as a sophomore. “The real popular people are in it and that shows the younger kids that it’s OK not to take drugs.”

Antelope Valley leaders predict an enthusiastic response because their community has become alarmed at how crime and drug activity accompanied population growth in the past three years.

“We hope that every kid will want this card,” said developer Gregg Anderson of Rancho Vista Estates.

Pricer, who runs a hot line for people with gang- and drug-related problems and a “scared straight” program in which ex-convicts counsel teen-agers, plans to begin offering no-charge drug tests by October at the office of his organization, the United Community Action Network.

He hopes to have students sign up through the Antelope Valley Union High School District. School Supt. Kenneth Brummel said Monday that he likes the proposal and will present it to the school board.

Four local McDonald’s restaurants have offered to provide coupons to participants and pledges of support have come from bowling alleys, record stores, video arcades and movie theaters.

Supporters acknowledge that drug testing is fraught with controversy. In Texas and Oklahoma, civil libertarians and some students and parents have complained that students’ privacy is violated by the peer pressure created by the program, and that those who do not take the tests are stigmatized.

Fitzgerald agreed that the 7% of Whitehouse students who do not take the test may feel uncomfortable, but said that was the desired effect.

“This is positive peer pressure,” the school counselor said.

Joe Cook, president of the American Civil Liberties Union in Dallas, said the program was “fraught with serious difficulties. The occurence of a false positive on a test could have a devastating effect on a child.”

Such problems can be avoided with community support, Pricer said. He emphasized that they want the program voluntary.

“I don’t believe you are ever violating privacy when it’s an entirely volunteer program,” Pricer said. “It’s like joining a club, clubs have rules and standards. . . . We have had negative peer pressure on kids for a long time and the ACLU never jumps on that.”

In an effort to make sure that tests are accurate, students whose tests indicate drug use will be automatically retested, as they have been in other states, Pricer said. Those whose second tests also come out positive will lose their membership privileges and be offered drug counseling, he said.