Youths Get Support in Resisting Gangs, Drugs : Conference: Young people who once ran with the wrong crowd mingle with those still vulnerable. The gathering continues today.

The 17-year-old said he joined a gang with the best of intentions.

Gangs from surrounding areas were invading his neighborhood in Ventura County, beating up friends and selling drugs.

The youth said he and his friends became more like a vigilante force than a gang, trying to keep gangs out of the neighborhood and retaliating for their violence.

But the group was soon indistinguishable from any other gang. Mix that with his crack cocaine dealing and life got so precarious, he said, that he wore a bullet proof vest when he left the house.

But now, things are different. He’s off drugs, has left the gang and has moved to Orange County, where he’s a junior in high school.

And on Saturday, he found himself at the Orange County Youth to Youth Conference, spending time with others talking about the dangers of drugs and gangs, subjects that not so long ago were a large part of his life.

The youth said he signed up for the weekend conference, which continues today at Century High School, to spend time with others who aren’t into drugs. About 450 students from across Southern California are attending.

“It’s been great so far,” he said shortly after attending a seminar on gang-resistance skills. “People here are nice.”

The focus of the weekend conference is to bring high school students who have kicked the drug habit together and show them that it’s possible to be accepted by others, said Henry Lozano, executive director of the California Youth to Youth Alliance.

“The ‘Just Say No’ doesn’t work after sixth, seventh or eighth grade,” Lozano said.

Instead, students need to learn to value who they are and discover that being drug-free isn’t something they need to be ashamed of, he said.

“We’re just saying that all the kids here have the right to be drug-free, and not all of them believe that,” he said. “When you ask them, ‘Can you be accepted in your group without at least trying drugs?’ most of them say no. They assume they have to negotiate a substance just to be part of the group.”

The alliance, formed three years ago, helps local communities set up weekend conferences, bringing in speakers tailored to that community’s needs.

At the Santa Ana conference, speakers gave seminars on nonaggressive self-defense, understanding the opposite sex, making it in the business world, coping with an alcoholic parent, suicide and depression. Speakers included a police officer, doctors, psychologists and business leaders.

“Our role models aren’t ex-users who say, ‘Don’t do what I did,’ ” Lozano said. “Our role models are those (who) don’t do drugs.”

The conferences are drawing greater numbers of students, he said, because of the growing frustration with the drug culture.

“There’s just an incredible number of young people that have had it up to here with dope,” he said.