Drugs: One Man’s Quest to Keep Kids Away from Them

San Marcos, Calif. — The audience of 35 teenagers shuffling into a classroom at Twin Oaks High school on a Thursday morning does not look friendly. Heads down and dark sweatshirt hoods up, there is barely any chatter. But Rocky Herron is not deterred. Herron, a towering former Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a recently minted grandfather, begins a 90-minute presentation on the dangers of substance abuse. It is not so much a lecture as an offer of sympathy and a call to arms. “Our society is failing you,” he tells the assembled students, almost all of whom have been referred there because they were not on track to graduate from their neighborhood school. “I don’t comprehend how our society is not doing more to protect you from the dangers of drugs and alcohol.”

Rocky Herron spent 31 years working for DEA, and the beginning of his presentation is an attempt to establish credibility. There are pictures of his team burning cocaine facilities in Bolivia and standing next to stockpiles of seized weapons from drug dealers in San Diego. At a certain point, he tells me, he began to wonder about the impact he and his colleagues could have on drug use in this country “if we are only focused on the supply not the demand.”

About the Author

Naomi Schaefer Riley

Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of No Way to Treat a Child.

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San Marcos, Calif. — The audience of 35 teenagers shuffling into a classroom at Twin Oaks High school on a Thursday morning does not look friendly. Heads down and dark sweatshirt hoods up, there is barely any chatter. But Rocky Herron is not deterred. Herron, a towering former Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a recently minted grandfather, begins a 90-minute presentation on the dangers of substance abuse. It is not so much a lecture as an offer of sympathy and a call to arms. “Our society is failing you,” he tells the assembled students, almost all of whom have been referred there because they were not on track to graduate from their neighborhood school. “I don’t comprehend how our society is not doing more to protect you from the dangers of drugs and alcohol.”

Rocky Herron spent 31 years working for DEA, and the beginning of his presentation is an attempt to establish credibility. There are pictures of his team burning cocaine facilities in Bolivia and standing next to stockpiles of seized weapons from drug dealers in San Diego. At a certain point, he tells me, he began to wonder about the impact he and his colleagues could have on drug use in this country “if we are only focused on the supply not the demand.”