5 Reasons Vancouver Volunteers Push Drug Education

To undercut the drug epidemic in Vancouver, B.C., the local chapter of Foundation for a Drug-Free World is going all out with drug education.

A team of Vancouver volunteers takes drug education very seriously because the cost of addiction in human suffering and dollars and cents is enormous:

• The B.C. Coroner Service reports 622 fatal overdoses from illicit drugs between January and October 2016 compared with 397 for the same period the year before.
• There are more hospitalizations attributed entirely to alcohol use than to heart attacks.
• The economic cost of alcohol-related harm in Canada is estimated at more than $14 billion annually of which $3.3 billion is directly for health care.
• Alcohol abuse in British Columbia was responsible for nearly 15,000 hospital admissions from 2015 to 2016—the highest of any Canadian province.
• According to Canada Health Services, 1 in 6, or 17 percent, of those who begin using cannabis as teenagers will become addicted to the drug. If they consume cannabis daily, the rate of addiction increases to 25 to 50 percent.

Vancouver Scientologists use drug education to address this crisis and invite the participation of concerned groups or individuals to join in their initiative. They hand out copies of Truth About Drugs booklets to children and teens and encourage parents, teachers, and community and civic leaders to join the campaign to ensure youth understand what drugs are and what they do. Knowing the truth about drugs helps youngsters make their own informed decisions to live drug-free.

The Vancouver team invites youth to find out the truth about drugs and sign a drug-free pledge. They also provide drug education materials and training to anyone interested in initiating this campaign in their own area.

Through its worldwide network of volunteers and partnerships, the Foundation for a Drug-Free World has distributed some 8 million copies of Truth About Drugs booklets over the past year—more than 80 million since the booklets were first published in 2006.

The Church of Scientology and its members support the Foundation for a Drug-Free World, whose Truth About Drugs campaign is one of the world’s largest nongovernmental drug education and prevention initiatives. Thanks to this support, the Foundation provides—free of charge—drug education booklets, videos and educator guides to teachers, mentors and civic and community leaders.

According to the United Nations Office on Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, “Every dollar spent on prevention can save governments up to ten dollars in later costs.”