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You’ll see the three billboards all across Greensboro — near N.C. A&T, over by the coliseum or way out West Market.
They carry the classic just-say-no message and tell teenagers — as well as you, me and everyone else — to avoid cigarettes and drugs like the swine flu.

You gotta wonder whether they’ll work, let alone catch your attention.

But drug prevention research released earlier this year says they will. Plus, the billboards are a real pop-culture piece, sandwiched among the forgettable stock-art ads everywhere else.

So, they’re good. The billboard backstory is even better. They’re done by teenagers for teenagers who believe they can smoke, swallow or snort anything and come out OK.

Listen to their stories, these new artists of our roads, and you begin to understand the potential impact on their generation — and themselves.

Like Ryan Greaney, a 16-year-old sophomore at Oak Ridge Military Academy. He did the anti-smoking poster with the diseased lung. Once, when he was an eighth-grader, his mother found a pack of cigarettes hidden in a speaker.

She smacked him.

“I know it’s a mistake,’’ his mother, a nurse and a smoker, told him. “I do it. But you don’t do it!’’

He’s trying to quit. He wants his mom to quit, too.

Or Scottie Gilbert. She’s 15, a sophomore at Grimsley High. She did the anti-drug billboard with the broken heart.

When she heard about the contest, she went into her room and spent two hours putting her idea on canvas. When she heard her artwork won, her mother picked her up from school and said, “Will you take a ride with me?’’

She did. They saw her billboard beside a beer ad near the Greensboro Coliseum. She thought it was “kinda crazy.’’ Her mom? She cried.

The broken heart is Scottie’s heart. It involves a close relative, a man in his 40s, who is fighting an addiction to painkillers and alcohol. Scottie won’t say who he is. But she will say what it’s done to her.

“How could he do it when so many people love him?’’ she asks. “He should know he’s hurting people.’’

I heard about all kinds of hurt last week. During a forum about the rising problem of teenagers abusing prescription drugs, I met two mothers. They didn’t hold back.

One mother found her 17-year-old son passed out on his bedroom floor after snorting Ambien.

Another mother found her 18-year-old daughter smoking marijuana, getting in trouble and going into treatment for a year.
She’s now 19, working, living on her own and attending GTCC. And she’s still smoking marijuana. Some.

“I asked her about it, and she told me, 'I’m doing good,’’’ the mother, a local teacher, told me. “But what that is, I don’t know.’’

Marijuana and alcohol are big among teenagers, followed by inhalants and prescription drugs, and if you attended last week’s forum at Grimsley High, you heard this choice reason why: “Oh, everybody is doing it.’’

Who knows? Guilford County has no current data. But we do know this from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America: Anti-drug messages are starting to work.

They worked for Shaquon Stimpson. Except in a different way.

He’s 15, a former fullback at Smith High. He now attends one of Greensboro’s alternative schools. He’s had it tough. His father, Antonio, 30, was slain Jan. 21, 2006, that year’s first homicide.

Shaquon has three tattoos to remember his dad: “R.I.P.’’ on his right forearm; “DAD’’ on his left forearm; and “Peazy,’’ his dad’s nickname, on his left bicep.

Now, he has something to honor himself: a billboard with two turntables and the message, “Success & Drugs Don’t Mix.’’
After seeing the billboard, his mom told him, “You have potential.’’ And what would his dad say?

Responds Shaquon: “I’m doing something right.’’

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com