Elks Drug Awareness Program comes to Harrison County Schools

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — The Elks Drug Awareness Program is spending this week traveling to middle and high schools across Harrison County to speak on the dangers of nicotine products through products like e-cigarettes and other vaping devices.

The series of visits, led by National Speaker Ray Lozano, kicked off on Monday, where he gave two presentations before students at United High School. After that, Lozano went to speak to the students at Washington Irving Middle School.

"What is really cool about the Elks is we're able to do it in a real fun way," said Lozano. "So it's not a testimonial or it's not like 'oh your friends are dying'—that kind of stuff, so we've got to do it in a real fun way so it really sticks with the students."

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Lozano has been involved with the Elks Drug Awareness Program for nearly 12 years. However, he told 12 News that he originally began traveling around to talk to students about nicotine and drug usage back in 1990.

Lozano said that it's important for him to travel around and share what he knows because there's too much access to information regarding drugs and nicotine online. He said that if a young person looks up the effects of marijuana or e-cigarettes, they will likely find a plethora of contradictory information on the topic.

"If you Google stuff about electronic cigarettes, you're gonna get all this misinformation," Lozano added. "So what I've done is I've taken a whole bunch of different studies, [broke] it down so a sixth grader can understand it."

Lozano stated that this program is very important to him on a personal level because he loves being able to help students. "That's one of the missions that the Elks do really well," he added. "They work with students, they provide a lot of great information–a lot of great material, so you can count on them for that."

"So on a personal level, it just fills this part of my heart of helping kids," said Lozano. He said that he knows he's making a difference because he often gets a lot of requests and compliments on his TikTok account regarding his work.

Throughout the week, Lozano will be making a few stops at several other schools throughout Harrison County. On Sept. 24, the Elks Drug Awareness Program will be stopping by Mountaineer Middle School, Liberty High School and Robert C. Byrd High School.

On Sept. 25, Lozano will visit Lincoln High School, Lincoln Middle School and Bridgeport Middle School. To close out the week, Lozano will be stopping by South Harrison High School, South Harrison Middle School, and Bridgeport High School on Sept. 26.

For any parents looking to find more information on how to talk to their children about drugs and/or alcohol, you can visit raylozano.com .