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60 free Red Ribbon Week trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
55 free Red Ribbon Week trivia questions with answers. Red Ribbon Week runs every October 23-31, and this quiz covers the whole story behind it: DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, the citizens of Calexico who first pinned on red ribbons, the Camarena Clubs, Nancy Reagan and the first national celebration in 1988. Alongside the history you will find factual drug and alcohol questions on nicotine and vaping, opioids and naloxone, caffeine, inhalants, blood alcohol limits, the 988 and poison-control lines, and the organisations behind prevention such as DARE, MADD and SADD. The questions are written for a school audience (roughly grades 5 through 12), so they are educational rather than sensational: no glamorising, no how-to, just the facts a health class or assembly would want students to know. Difficulty ramps from easy warm-ups to a few genuinely tough history questions for teachers and Red Ribbon coordinators. Every answer was checked against a reference page (Wikipedia, redribbon.org and government sources) before it went live, and each question shows its source, so you can use these for classroom quizzes, morning announcements or family trivia with confidence.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Red Ribbon Week honours a DEA agent who was kidnapped and murdered in Mexico in 1985. What was his name?
Enrique Camarena
Known as "Kiki", Camarena had been working undercover in Guadalajara for more than four years when he was abducted in broad daylight.
Q 02In which California border town, Camarena's hometown, were red ribbons first worn for him?
Calexico
The ribbon became their symbol for reducing the demand for illegal drugs, and it spread from there across the country.
Q 03Red Ribbon Week is observed on the same dates every year. Which are they?
October 23-31
The window ends on Halloween, which is why many schools fold their costume days and door-decorating contests into the campaign.
Q 04The first National Red Ribbon Week was organised by the National Family Partnership in which year?
1988
Congress proclaimed it, three years after Camarena’s death.
Q 05Which First Lady chaired the first National Red Ribbon Week?
Nancy Reagan
She had received a proclamation from Camarena Club members in 1986 and was already the face of the Just Say No campaign.
Q 06What were the anti-drug student groups Duncan Hunter and David Dhillon launched in California high schools called?
Camarena Clubs
In 1986 club members carried a proclamation to the White House.
Q 07According to the DEA, Red Ribbon Week holds what distinction among US drug-prevention programmes?
The largest and longest-running
It began as a grassroots tribute and grew into a nationwide campaign during Ronald Reagan's presidency.
Q 08The Red Ribbon Week sponsor NFP was founded in 1980 under what earlier name?
National Federation of Parents for Drug Free Youth
It is still a grassroots non-profit and runs the annual theme contest that students enter each year.
Q 09Camarena's pilot, who flew missions with him and was kidnapped the same day, was named what?
Alfredo Zavala Avelar
Both men's bodies were found wrapped in plastic near La Angostura, Michoacán, on March 5, 1985.
Q 10Before joining the DEA in 1973, Camarena served in which branch of the US military?
Marine Corps
He was a lance corporal from 1968 to 1970, then a Calexico police officer before moving into narcotics work.
Q 11What was the DEA's largest-ever homicide investigation, into agent Camarena's murder, code-named?
Operation Leyenda
Leyenda is Spanish for legend; the year before, Camarena had helped uncover the giant Rancho Búfalo marijuana plantation in Chihuahua.
Q 12Which actor plays Camarena in Narcos: Mexico?
Michael Peña
The story had already been dramatised in the 1990 miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story.
Q 13The DEA, the agency Camarena served, was established in which year?
1973
President Nixon's reorganisation merged the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs with several other offices to create it.
Q 21The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act pushed every US state to set the drinking age at what?
21
Despite its name, the law only bans purchase and public possession under that age, not consumption itself.
Q 22How did the National Minimum Drinking Age Act pressure states to comply?
Cutting federal highway funds
The Supreme Court upheld the arrangement in the 1987 case South Dakota v. Dole.
Q 23In most US states, drivers aged 21 and over are breaking the law at what blood alcohol concentration?
0.08% or higher
Zero-tolerance laws set the bar far lower for drivers under 21, at just 0.01% or 0.02%.
Q 14The DEA is a federal law enforcement agency that sits under which arm of the US government?
Department of Justice
Its headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia, where the agency also opened a museum in 1999.
Q 15Just Say No traces to a First Lady's 1984 visit to Longfellow Elementary in which city?
Oakland
A schoolgirl asked what to do if offered drugs, and Reagan's reply went largely unnoticed until students there started the first club.
Q 16Roughly how many Just Say No clubs were founded in schools and youth organisations?
Over 5,000
The campaign also reached TV: the First Lady appeared as herself on Diff’rent Strokes in 1983.
Q 17The DARE programme began in 1983 on the initiative of which city's police chief?
Los Angeles
Chief Daryl Gates worked with the school district superintendent to put uniformed officers in classrooms.
Q 18What animal is DARE's mascot, Daren?
A lion
In 2012 the programme swapped its lecture-heavy lessons for the interactive keepin' it REAL curriculum.
Q 19Which group did Candace Lightner found in 1980 after a drunk driver killed her daughter?
MADD
Lightner left the group in 1985; the organisation later moved its headquarters to Irving, Texas.
Q 20SADD was founded in 1981 by hockey coach Robert Anastas at a high school in which state?
Massachusetts
Two of Wayland High School's hockey players had died in a drunk-driving incident; the group renamed itself Students Against Destructive Decisions in 1997.
Q 24Which is the only US state to have lowered its drink-driving limit to 0.05%?
Utah
Campaigners had earlier lobbied to bring the national standard down from 0.10 to 0.08.
Q 25Alcohol is classified as what kind of drug, because it decreases neurons' electrical activity?
A depressant
Its by-product acetaldehyde is responsible for many of alcohol’s toxic and unpleasant effects.
Q 26Which organ metabolises 90 percent or more of the alcohol a person drinks?
The liver
Alcohol and its by-product acetaldehyde are both classed as Group 1 carcinogens by the IARC.
Q 27Teenagers who binge drink regularly tend to show a smaller version of which memory-related brain region?
Hippocampus
Early adolescence, before about age 15, is a critical window when key neural systems are still maturing.
Q 28The brain region that weighs long-term consequences is not fully mature until what age?
The mid-twenties
That lag between the reward circuitry and the prefrontal cortex is one reason young people are more vulnerable to addiction.
Q 29Which reward-pathway brain chemical gives drugs and their cues such a strong pull on behaviour?
Dopamine
Repeated exposure leaves lasting changes in circuits governing reward, stress and self-control, which is why addiction is treated as a brain disorder.
Q 30Which is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide, blamed for around 8 million deaths a year?
Tobacco smoking
Its smoke is a mix of more than 7,000 chemicals, 69 of which are known carcinogens.