MENIFEE -- Amid skateboarding demonstrations, interactive games, food and the beat of popular music blasting through speakers at the Menifee Community Center was a message -- say no to alcohol and drugs.

Not just illicit drugs -- but also the insidious kind -- the drugs teens may think are OK because they're legal and sold over the counter, said Deb Beckwith, the event's coordinator, whose teenage daughter died of complications from taking too much cold medicine in 2004.

About 200 area teens attended the Extreme Life Choice Conference on Saturday, an event designed "by kids, for kids," and meant to educate them about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, with an emphasis on caffeine, cold medicines, binge drinking and prescription drugs, organizers said.

"They are much more likely to use something they find at home," Beckwith said.

The conference was designed for students in eighth through 12th grade and hosted by 3rd District Supervisor Jeff Stone's office, the Friday Night Live Partnership, La Vista Prevention Services and the Valley Wide Recreation & Park District.

The 3rd District Youth Advisory Council had a large role in planning the event, as organizers said they wanted the conference to relate to adolescents so that it would be more effective.

"This is by kids, for kids," said Jane Farmer, director of La Vista Prevention Services. "Parents who showed up with their kids were asked to leave."

By 8 a.m., there was a line of teens waiting at the doors of the community center for the free event, which started at 10:30 a.m. and was offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

"We were thrilled," La Vista's Linda Frazier said. "They stayed in line for two hours. It tells me our kids have an extreme desire to make different choices in life, to learn about new choices."

The four-hour conference included a frank talk by 24-year-old Los Angeles resident Alexandra Khan, who told the audience about her troubled teenage years living on the streets "using gutters as a toilet, eating people's leftover food and sleeping at the beach and park."

"That is where drugs and alcohol take you," she said.

She went on to talk about her recovery from addiction, including how she went back to school and eventually became an artist and counselor.

"There were all these things I could do sober that I didn't think I could do," Khan said.

During her speech, she asked the audience to raise their hands if they had seen their peers using drugs or alcohol at school, and about 25 percent of the audience responded.

"We're starting to see a lot of drugs around schools, like cough medicine and inhalants," Khan said. "They're just as dangerous."

The teens also watched a skit in which a mother confronts her daughter who is in some sort of trance after taking too much cold medicine. The performance was based on a real experience Beckwith said she had with her daughter.

"As a mother, I went in to confront her, and she just stared straight ahead at the television, her eyes open," Beckwith recalled. "It's a dissociative state, like a hallucinogen."

Beckwith said the active ingredient in cold medicine, dextromethorphan, is what causes the trance when taken in high doses.Â

"It's not a bad drug, unless you take it over the recommended dose," she said.

Karla Ayala, a 17-year-old San Jacinto resident and a member of the youth advisory council, played Beckwith's daughter in the skit.

She said she was nervous about the performance, but knew it was for a good cause.

"If that's what's going to touch the youth, then so be it," Karla said. "That is why we are putting it out there."

Members of the youth advisory council and the Friday Night Live Partnership led the event, which also included a game fashioned after the popular television show "Jeopardy."

The teens attending the event were given a study guide during lunch and then asked to answer a series of questions about the dangers of caffeine, cold medicines, binge drinking and prescription drugs.

Among the information presented, the teens were told that too much caffeine -- an ingredient in many popular energy drinks -- can cause insomnia, tremors, nausea, sweating, vomiting, diarrhea, chest pains and heart palpitations.

"This event is really to bring awareness to even the legal substances, especially energy drinks," Beckwith said.

Jessica Conner, a 14-year-old freshman at Paloma Valley High School, said she learned about the event through her mother. Although she knows not to use drugs and alcohol, she said the conference "influenced me more not to do them."

Andrew, a 16-year-old who attended the event as part of the Riverside Recovery Resources rehabilitation program, said he had been expelled from his former high school in Las Vegas and had often used illegal drugs in the past.

"I've been sober for about a month and it's pretty cool to just come here," he said, as he watched a skateboarding demonstration during their lunch break.

Andrew was wearing a green wrist band, one of 16 handed out at the start of the event.

At the conclusion of the conference, those 16 teens were called up, representing the deaths that took place in the four-hour span of the program, as statistics show that every 15 minutes an alcohol-related accident claims a life, Beckwith said. Â

The Menifee event was the second such conference in the area. The first was offered in Hemet in February, and another is scheduled for Sept. 19 in Temecula.