With teams from 24 European countries, and fans from throughout the continent and across the globe, Drug-Free World spread the message of drug prevention far and wide throughout the UEFA European Championship games.
For an entire month, from June 14 to July 14, volunteers from Scientology Churches and Missions throughout Germany and their partners reached out to fans at the UEFA European Championship games. They promoted the importance of drug-free living and shared their drug education and prevention campaign. They reached out and encouraged everyone they met to choose the drug-free, active lifestyle that is the basis of athletic success—one particularly important in the face of alarming drug trends.
While Europe has been spared the spiraling overdose deaths opioids have caused in America and Canada, the most recent European Union Drug Agency report warns of increased availability and use of cocaine, opioids, synthetics and psychoactive substances on the continent, along with a rise in homelessness, drug-related corruption and violent crime, and the importance of countering it with evidence-based drug prevention.
The drug-prevention initiative sponsored by the Scientology Churches and Scientologists of Germany is called the Sag Nein zu Droge (Say No to Drugs) campaign of Foundation for a Drug-Free World. Over the course of a month, at stadiums throughout the country, volunteers handed out hundreds of thousands of the Foundation’s Truth About Drugs booklets.
Volunteers set up stands and mobile exhibits and held impromptu concerts. They walked people through the booklets and encouraged them to sign their drug-free pledge. They shared the unvarnished truth about the most commonly used drugs one-on-one with everyone they met. And they were gratified with the response they received.
Shopkeepers were eager to take stacks of the booklets for their customers. Many commented that with increased drug use in their neighborhood, there has also been more crime. They were happy to do something effective to counter what they see as an alarming trend.
A woman asked for several copies of the booklet. She knew some of her daughter’s friends had begun experimenting with drugs and the booklet gave her the confidence she needed to have a heart-to-heart talk with her daughter.
A high school student said he was concerned about major mood shifts he’s seen in some of his friends who are taking drugs. Reading the booklet, he realized drugs were probably behind this change and he wanted copies to give to his classmates.
And so it went in city after city, day after day, with local residents, people from out of town, from other European countries, and enthusiasts from abroad who timed their vacations to spend the month in Germany for the games.
Foundation for a Drug-Free World is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit with consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Thanks to the support of Churches of Scientology and Scientologists, the Foundation makes its acclaimed secular drug education and prevention materials and programs available free of charge.
For decades, Scientologists have engaged in drug education and prevention in their communities, inspired by humanitarian and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, who wrote, “Research has demonstrated that the single most destructive element present in our current culture is drugs.”
