In memory of Adam Hernandez, "Make Wise Choices" is a poem written by Ruth Rivas a community advocate & public speaker who runs a non-profit movement called Spice is Not Nice. Mrs. Rivas recorded the poem earlier this Fall with the Voices Behind Walls program at Aliviane, Inc.'s main office, a non-profit program in El Paso County that provides promotion, prevention, intervention, and treatment services for issues related to substance abuse and mental health. I first heard about Mrs. Rivas and Adam Hernandez's story through the El Paso Times article titled "El Paso Mom Campaigns Against Drug Linked to Son's Death". In September I got the opportunity to attend a forum in which Mrs. Rivas shared a powerful presentation about Adam's life and the importance of raising awareness for drugs that pose life threatening risks for its users and are legally distributed throughout the world. Mrs. Rivas is a powerful speaker.
In her poem "Make Wise Choices", I decided to share the audio acapella with a youth named Vicente who is currently incarcerated at the J. Paul Taylor Center. Vicente started playing trumpet when he was 11 years of age. In grade school Vicente was placed in the varsity band and promoted to the first chair position and was able to gain a 3rd chair spot for all of New Mexico. Vicente is self taught on the piano and familiar with a number of other instruments. He was provided with the audio recording of Mrs. Rivas and asked if he could develop an instrumental to compliment the message of "Make Wise Choices". With only an old Casio keyboard and a controller interface donated by the NMSU Writers in the Schools program, Vicente was able to develop the instrumental you hear behind Mrs. Rivas poem above.
For more information on Mrs. Rivas and the movement to make the world aware of the dangers of synthetic drugs like spice please visit Spice is Not Nice.org. I also encourage that you forward the YouTube video to schools, youth programs, juvenile detention center contacts, non-profits, radio stations, podcasts, and anyone else that could pass on the message.
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