Kansas City, Mo. ? A suburban Kansas City school is the first to launch a national program warning students about prescription drug abuse.

Shawnee Mission South High School in Overland Park, Kan., is one of three schools chosen to be pilot sites for the “Smart Moves, Smart Choices” program. But by having its kickoff assembly Wednesday ahead of the other sites, it became the first school in the nation with the program.

“Parents in general worry about illegal drugs, and they don’t think about what’s in their own medicine cabinets,” said Shawnee Mission South nurse Kara Erickson.

But she said students and their parents need to know that prescription drug abuse is a problem.

“Smart Moves, Smart Choices” is a free program sponsored by the National Association of School Nurses in Silver Spring, Md., and PriCara, which is part of Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals in Raritan, N.J.

Erickson said the program will include curriculum for teachers to use in their classrooms. She and others are working on creating a virtual library of program materials that teachers can easily access for their classes.

The program has a strong Internet presence already, with a series of videos posted at the National Association of School Nurses’ Web site. The videos cover issues related to prescription drugs, including myths about using the drugs, the physical effects of addiction and the role that parents can play in preventing abuse.

“You’re always looking for things that connect with students and a way to get through to them,” Erickson said.

Erickson learned about the program in the school nurse association’s newsletter and contacted the organization. She thought it would be a strong addition to the school’s other anti-drug activities.

The issue of prescription drug abuse was also timely. Recent incidents, like one involving nine middle school girls who became ill from methadone pills last month in St. Joseph, Mo., were still on people’s minds.

Erickson said she learned just weeks ago that her school had been picked for the program, and staff and students quickly started planning the kickoff assembly.

A 2006 survey of more than 1,300 school nurses found that nearly 60 percent of the nurses considered prescription drug abuse to be a growing or significant problem, according to the National Association of School Nurses.

The concerns among nurses helped spark the “Smart Moves, Smart Choices” program, said Sandi Delack, the school nurses association’s acting president.

“It’s a really understated problem,” Delack said. “Prescription drug use is surging among our nation’s youth.”

The other pilot schools are a junior high in Ohio and a middle school in Delaware.

Delack said they were selected for various reasons, including how willing they were to promote the program and how prevalent the prescription drug problem is in their area.