ADAMS TWP — Drugs and alcohol could have a harder time gaining a foothold at Mars School District this week.

Mars High School students who are members of Responsible Educated Adolescents Can Help (REACH), the school's drug and alcohol resistance program, recently received four days of training on the subject from Ray Lozano of the national resistance organization Prevention Plus.

REACH students on Thursday and Friday mentored members of Strive, Mars Middle School's drug resistance program, as they participated in Lozano's seminar. The event was held from Tuesday through Friday at Mars Alliance Church on Route 228 in Adams Township.

Lozano, a motivational speaker, youth mentor and prevention specialist based in Riverside, Calif., has been providing the fun and interactive training annually at Mars for the past five years. Lozano leads the students in team-building exercises that often result in hilarity and seeming chaos, then he connects the activity to a resistance concept.

"He can make (the team-building games) a metaphor for decisions they make in high school," said Darcy Silbaugh, a REACH sponsor and Mars High English teacher.

In one activity, Lozano divided the 30 REACH students into teams of five. Each team lined up single file, and Lozano showed the student in the rear a simple picture or symbol and instructed the student to silently draw it on the back of the student in front of him.

The picture was drawn on successive backs until it reached the front student, who then drew the picture on paper. The end result never resembled the picture shown to the original player.

"That shows how communication can break down in high school," Lozano told the students.

Lozano sat down to take a break and talk to the church's youth minister, 2003 Mars High graduate Scott Kelly, as student teams worked on skits in individual classrooms in the church basement.

The student-generated skits, which were performed on Wednesday and Thursday, had to include elements from each concept presented at the event.

Kelly said he regularly steals Lozano's team-building activities for use at Sunday school and youth group.

"It's a great way to train leaders," said Kelly, himself a REACH alumnus.

In the church classrooms, students enthusiastically created their skits. One group planned to remake the Disney hit "The Lion King," in which the lead character becomes intoxicated after the villain, Scar, gives him alcohol.

The female lead, Nala, gives her husband the king information on the dangers of alcohol and warns him that his crown might be in peril because of his poor decision making. The sketch ends with the king deciding to eschew alcohol.

Sophomore Allison Franco said the group hopes to perform the skit at the elementary school to warn younger students of the dangers inherent in alcohol and drug use.

"They get the information in a fun way," Franco said.

Sophomore Garrett White said his group's skit drew elements from "Twilight" and the Harry Potter series to dramatically emphasize the dangers of drug and alcohol use. He said the skit also would include the three stages of intoxication he learned from Lozano: pee, puke and pass out.

"There are a lot of wrong things going on, and kids need to know the difference between right and wrong," Garrett said of teen life today.

Lozano said giving teens the tools to avoid the dangerous temptations of drugs and alcohol has been his quest since 1984.

"I want to get these kids on the other side of this," Lozano said. "I feel like this is my life's mission."