National Red Ribbon Week has started

  • Published
  • By Paul Blystone
  • Drug Demand Reduction Program
MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. --  "Ask me, see me, be me. Heroes remain drug free," is the DOD theme for this year's Red Ribbon Week celebration. 

The local community is using the theme of "Drug Free and Proud." 

Malmstrom and Great Falls will once again join in their observances to help keep children drug free. The National Observance started Thursday and runs through Oct. 31.
The Youth Center will be having activities for children with a Red Ribbon theme. The library will have a drug awareness display set up, with educational handouts for parents and red ribbons. The commissary will continue an event that is popular with their customers. They provide grocery bags to Loy Elementary students, who decorate them with a Red Ribbon theme and return them. The bags are then given to customers during the week. Loy, as well as the other schools in Great Falls, have events planned during the week. 

Millions of children and adults celebrate a healthy, drug-free life by wearing or displaying a red ribbon during the annual Red Ribbon Celebration. National Family Partnership has provided national leadership for the event since 1988. 

The National Red Ribbon Celebration began in 1986, following the murder of Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, a Drug Enforcement Agent assigned to a case in Mexico. He was kidnapped, tortured and murdered just days before he was to identify the kingpins of an illegal drug operation in Mexico. 

Angered by Mr. Camarena's death and the destruction caused by drugs and alcohol in America, people in his home town of Calexico, Calif., began wearing red ribbons in his honor. 

Members of the National Family Partnership and its affiliated organizations began to wear red ribbons as a symbol of their commitment to fight the illegal use of drugs. Today, a red ribbon is a symbol for drug, alcohol and tobacco prevention across America. 

Red ribbons can be worn on civilian attire and are available at the base's drug-testing office in building 2041 as well as at the library.