Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
 | | On the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, the Foundation for a Drug Free World announced a new program to help parents learn how to communicate to their children about drugs. Since so much of the crime that plagues our cities is drug-related, helping children and teens decide to live drug-free lives can help our communities enormously. |
And with the sheer amount of devastation drug abuse causes, what could matter more to parents than helping their children make the right decisions about drugs?
According to the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, a program created in 1998 by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, two-thirds of teens say that losing their parents' respect and pride is one of the main reasons they don't smoke marijuana or use other drugs.
Yet many parents remain silent, even when speaking up about drugs can help their children so much, simply because they don't know how to broach this sensitive subject with them.
The Foundation for a Drug Free World, seeing parents as the key to making significant inroads in the fight against drug abuse, chose the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service to announce a new program that helps parents learn how to approach their kids and communicate to them about drugs. This program gives parents the information they need to help their children and teens decide not to start taking drugs in the first place.
The Foundation chose Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service to launch this campaign because this is a holiday unlike any other in the United States. It is know as "a day 'on' not a day off" — meaning that this is one day when all Americans should do something: specifically, something to help their communities.
Since so much of the crime that plagues our cities is driven by drugs — drug trafficking, drug use and crimes committed to support drug habits — the simple action of talking to children and teens about drugs can, all by itself, help our communities enormously.
At a presentation held as part of the MLK celebration at Southwest College, a branch of the community college system of the City of Los Angeles, the LA-based Foundation announced its program to provide lectures and materials to train parents on how to talk to their kids about drugs.
"We are providing this new parents' education program because children really need their help," said Lidia Dinges, spokesperson for the Foundation. "By each parent taking responsibility to talk to their children about drugs we can save millions of lives."
The Foundation for a Drug-Free World is a secular non-profit organization based in Los Angeles, California. It was established to meet the increasing demand for the "Say No to Drugs, Say Yes to Life" community drug-prevention program originally spearheaded by the Church of Scientology International and supported by Scientology churches and other volunteer organizations for over 20 years around the world.
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