It’s a scenario that happens far too often, and usually with tragic consequences. Young people are having a get-together at someone’s house when illegal substancesare passed around. One decides he’d like to have the experience of getting high but winds up havinga toxic reaction, sending him to the hospitalwith his life hanging in the balance.

At the Russell Brackman Middle School in Barnegat Township, this scene was acted out recentlythrough a program involving sixth-graders known as Project…