Around the World
Public awareness campaigns utilize our
drug prevention booklets in their activities.
Supplementing the distribution of more than
17 million booklets are hundreds of thousands
of anti-drug billboards and posters, nearly 50 million
drug education handouts, tens of thousands of public
awareness events and thousands of newspaper
and television stories promoting the “live drug free”
message. This is an astounding level of distribution
for a private drug prevention effort. Their positive
impact is felt in cities, towns and communities
internationally.
The primary method by which The Truth About
Drugs booklets are distributed is through “Say No to
Drugs, Say Yes to Life” chapters.
These groups began as a grass-roots 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
campaign was expanded to include a younger age
group through the “Drug-Free Marshals” program,
in which youth 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 youth between ages 6 and 13 were
“sworn in” by the director of the Los Angeles Federal
Bureau of Investigation's Drug Demand Reduction
Program and actor John Travolta. The program has
since expanded to Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico,
New Zealand, South Africa, Taiwan, the United
Kingdom and elsewhere. Millions of youth and adults,
including legislators, teachers and law enforcement
officials, have signed the drug-free pledge.
