How often parents tell their children not to play with matches, talk to strangers or stay out late? In most cases, a parent’s fear is that such warnings will go unheeded.
What happens then if one tries to educate a child about the dangers of drug use, especially in a world where children as young as 12 buy and sell crack cocaine and other street drugs to their friends? As long as a son or daughter is under the parents’ watchful eye, the problem is not as threatening. But what happens when mother or father are not around?
The Foundation for a Drug-Free World believes that the real answer to keeping children off drugs is not for parents to force a view onto their children, but to provide a child a full understanding of the dangers of drugs so that he makes his own self-determined decision to be drug-free. That is entirely the thrust of the Drug-Free Marshals program adopted by the Foundation for a Drug-Free World. Children who participate in the program are first educated on the dangers of drug use, then deputized as Drug-Free Marshals who pledge to keep themselves, their friends and family drug-free. Under this program, young people are given responsibility for creating their own drug-free generation.
Drug-Free Marshals swear in adults as well as children, taking their positive message into many sectors of society. Additionally they conduct essay contests, anti-drug marches and drug education lectures. The program began in 1993 and since then over 3 million children and adults – including national and state legislators, mayors, judges and police chiefs – have been “sworn in”.
The program has been also adopted by some schools, some of which have sponsored essay contests about the benefits of being drug-free. Others have declared their schools “Drug-Free Marshals Territory” and pledged to keep drugs entirely out of their local communities.
Members of the Foundation for a Drug-Free World work with others to spread the word that a drug-free life is a better, more productive and happier one. Bringing an end to the international scourge of drug abuse is an effort which involves everyone, for only by working together can the problem be solved.
For more information about the Drug-Free Marshals program, to schedule a lecturer or receive copies of the pledge visit www.drugfreeworld.org.
And for the person who has a drug problem, there are also real solutions to addiction. Narconon, a drug rehabilitation program that utilizes the methods of L. Ron Hubbard, has a success rate of more than 75%. For more information on this drug-free method of substance abuse treatment, visit www.narconon.org.