Hey, your friend died in a drunk driving accident yesterday... Just kidding... By the way, don't drink and drive.

Students were told classmates had died in car wrecks — they hadn't

"OCEANSIDE, Calif. - On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.

Classmates wept. Some became hysterical.

A few hours and many tears later, though, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that it was all a hoax — a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving."

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How far is too far? I understand the need to educate youngsters especially on the issues of drinking and driving but I am not sure how I feel about this. Does the valuable lesson attempted to be taught outweigh the trauma? I feel like they were living by Malcolm X's quote "By Any Means Necessary" when they planned this. At my high school they did the Every 15 Minutes presentation, and as moving and powerful the fake drunk driving accident was, I remember going to a party that evening and seeing some of my classmates drink and drive. As strict and more clenching these DUI laws become, I still hear of drunk driving deaths. Sadly, it never seems to cease.