The observation of Red Ribbon Week began Friday and continues through Saturday.

‘‘Looking forward, there’s a lot of challenges in front of us,” Army Col. Ronald Shippee, director of the Drug Testing and Program Policy for Tricare Management Activity, told those gathered last week for the event’s kickoff. ‘‘Right now one of the biggest problems we’re facing is the abuse of prescription drugs. The whole country is facing this problem. We’re not alone.”

Shippee’s program encompasses more than just drug testing, he said. ‘‘To run a successful program, it’s got to be drug testing, education, prevention.”

Shippee has seen the affects of substance abuse on the military. He was assigned to a unit in Vietnamaffected by drug abuse, but didn’t realize how pervasive the problem was until he got to the U.S. Army War College.

‘‘At the War College in Carlyle [Pa.], they’ll tell you that was a near-death experience for the U.S. Army,” Shippee said. ‘‘In ’73, [the department] had an amnesty program; 16,000 guys came forward with a heroin problem.”

Today, there’s a threat of a repeat of the heroin problem as service members fight in Afghanistan, Shippee said. The country’s main crop is the opium poppy, from which heroinis produced.

‘‘We’re in Afghanistan where there’s heroin everywhere,” he said in an earlier interview. ‘‘We’ve taken an extremely aggressive approach. We now screen every [fluid sample] for heroin.

‘‘We do 4.5 million tests a year,” he added. ‘‘Theoperative term in our program is deterrence. We know we don’t catch everybody with deterrence. That only comes from an aggressive drug-testing program and an education and a treatment [program].”

The message may not be getting out as strongly as it needs to overall, said Peggy Sapp, National Family Partnership president. Though casual drug use in America dropped by half from 1980 until 1991,it’s inching back up.

‘‘The grassroots, the people who really have to deliver the message, maybe don’t really have the message as strongly,” Sapp said during the kickoff. ‘‘We have a lot of work to do. The fight is not over.”

The National Family Partnership created Red Ribbon Week in 1988 as a way to honor Drug EnforcementAdministration special agent Enrique ‘‘Kiki” S.Camarena, who was kidnapped and murdered by drug traffickers in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The Defense Department officially has participated in Red Ribbon Week since 1990. It is also a chance for the department to highlight programs that are important for the military and defense agencies throughout the year and to extend its outreach.

The programs are in place for service members, as well as their families. Tricare officials urge beneficiaries dealing with substance abuse issues, their own or those of a loved one, to take advantage of the many available options to treat substance abuse and disorders, according to a Red Ribbon Week news release. Servicesinclude detoxification, rehabilitation and outpatient group and family therapy.

Some of the programs include the award-winning ‘‘Quit Tobacco. Make Everyone Proud” smoking cessation campaign. Users can develop a personalized plan for quitting, play games, listen to podcasts, connect to online cessation programs and chat with a trained cessation counselor seven days a week, from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. EST.

‘‘That Guy,” is another program targeting 18- to24-year-old service members. It highlights socialdisapproval of excessive drinking by featuring embarrassing consequences.