Education Is the Key to a Drug-Free Life

Church of Scientology Los Angeles hosts a workshop to train educators and community leaders on the Truth About Drugs drug education and prevention curriculum.

With a 44 percent increase in overdoses in California in 2017, the Los Angeles chapter of Foundation for a Drug-Free World brought together educators and community leaders for a drug education and prevention workshop at the Church of Scientology Los Angeles. Twenty-nine educators from across Southern California learned to use the Truth About Drugs curriculum to help young people make the self-determined decision not to use dangerous drugs.

The seminar focused on opioids and painkillers. It also educated those attending on marijuana and the harmful effects of elevated levels of THC.

The Truth About Drugs curriculum includes youth-friendly booklets covering all major drugs of choice and the high-impact The Truth About Drugs—Real People Real Stories documentary, with ex-users and ex-dealers sharing first-hand experiences, communicating how important it is to be informed before experimenting with potentially lethal drugs.

The Foundation provides its cutting-edge educational materials free of charge to educators and counselors to give them the tools to combat abuse.

Drug-Free World seminar leaders took attendees through the entire Truth About Drugs Educator’s Guide including all materials contained in the Educator’s Kit. Participants then broke into groups where they practiced using these materials to handle situations they anticipate or have run into in reaching youth and adults on this vital subject. By the end of the seminar, those attending gained proficiency and knew they could deliver effective drug education.

“By survey, 50 percent of the students in public schools in the United States have tried an illicit drug, or are using one, by the time they are 17,” said Betsy Davis, Director of Public Outreach for Drug-Free World Los Angeles which hosted the seminar. “By the same token, studies also suggest that a young person who reaches the age of 21 without using illicit drugs is unlikely ever to do so, so we must get to them with these materials before the drugs do. Humanitarian and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard said, ‘When children become unimportant to a society, that society has forfeited its future.’ Drug-Free World fully believes that children are our future, and so we must help them survive in this drug-oriented society.”

Davis stressed: If you want to prevent teens from yielding to peer pressure to “just try it once,” you must give them the facts they need to make an intelligent decision about drugs. They have to know that “just once” can change their peaceful lives into an existence filled with pain and misery or even sudden death.

The Foundation for a Drug-Free World is a nonreligious, nonprofit drug prevention organization. Through a network of volunteers, Drug-Free World has distributed more than 118 million drug education booklets in 188 countries in 20 languages. For more information please visit their website at www.drugfreeworld.org.