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Australia
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Fully aware of the devastating effects of drugs, Scientologists are committed to resolving the problem in all its aspects. Their activities include broad public campaigns to inform others — beginning with children, who are, after all, the dealers’ next target — of the dangers of illegal substances, and abuse of even legal substances.
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Paris
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Drug Education: Millions of copies of anti-drug publications and fliers have been distributed, warning of the consequences of taking drugs. These have been credited with saving many from drugs.
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Thus, the churches of Scientology and their parishioners have united concerned parents, experts and community groups and staged public awareness forums, rallies and educational conferences in countries throughout Europe. These include Germany, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Greece, Commonwealth of Independent States, Spain, Hungary, Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.
These efforts began as a grassroots movement in the mid 1980s with the simple message, “Say No to Drugs, Say Yes to Life”, directed at teens and young adults who faced peer pressure to experiment with drugs. In the United States, the Church expanded this campaign to include younger children through the “Drug-Free Marshals” programme in which children adopt a pledge to remain drug-free and encourage others to do the same.
The Drug-Free Marshals campaign began in April 1993 when 200 children ages six to 13 were “sworn in” by the director of the Los Angeles Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Drug Demand Reduction Programme and a Church member known worldwide for his anti-drug stance: actor John Travolta. Since that time, the programme has expanded to Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Taiwan. More than 3.1 million children and adults, including legislators, teachers, and law enforcement officials, have signed the drug-free pledge.
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Hamburg
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Milan
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Scientologists in France, Switzerland and Italy have distributed hundreds of thousands of anti-drug booklets — like “The Truth about the Joints,” “Ecstasy: The Traitor Unmasked” as well others on Cocaine and Heroin — to young people at events and concerts. These publications provide the truth about these dangerous substances and discourage their use.
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In the late 1990s, a search was done to find literature geared to young people with the facts about drugs and drug use in straightforward terms they could understand. Very little was found, so a Scientologist from Switzerland set about to remedy that lack by writing a series of booklets about individual drugs.
These booklets were so popular that the Church undertook to publish them broadly. Presenting facts about cannabis, heroin, cocaine, crack and ecstasy, more than 7 million copies have been distributed in Europe since 2000 alone, providing people of all ages with the vital knowledge that allows them to make informed decisions about drugs.
The booklets have been supplemented with more than 173,000 anti-drug billboards and posters, 42 million drug-prevention fliers, 65,000 public awareness events and more than 5,500 newspaper and television stories promoting the “live drug-free” message. Their positive impact is felt in cities, towns and communities across the continent and in 53 countries internationally.
In Germany, Church volunteers have mailed and distributed more than 450,000 booklets on the dangers of cannabis, an astounding number considering it is a private drug-prevention effort. And anti-drug associations — supported by the German churches of Scientology — work daily to supply a steady stream of vital information about drug prevention and rehabilitation programmes to the general public, as well as to government, business and community groups. Also, concerts, rallies and broad-scale distribution of drug education literature organised by Scientologists have mobilised thousands of German citizens to pledge support of the campaign and to lead drug-free lives.
Thousands of additional copies of the educational publications have been requested by police officers in charge of drug prevention for use in their own local drug-education programmes. A growing number of physicians throughout Germany, alarmed by the unabated drug use they encounter, display the booklet in waiting rooms for their patients. All national and regional members of parliament and mayors in Germany received a copy of the drug-education booklet on cannabis; some have ordered hundreds of additional copies for their own use.
