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COMMUNITY
OUTREACH
AND
ASSISTANCE
PROGRAMS
Nor was he by any means the only one to recognize the Church’s efforts. Not long after establishment of “Lead the Way” in the District of Columbia, the director of the Office for Substance Abuse Prevention of the US Department of Health commended the Church for its drug-fighting initiative: “It is because of the participation of dedicated groups like yours that we are making progress in the reduction of alcohol and other drug problems.”
Using programs developed and supervised by local churches, the Church has encouraged individual Scientologists to participate in Church-sponsored anti-drug campaigns.
Scientologists across the US rallied to join the “Lead the Way to a Drug-Free USA” program, and to encourage youth to be drug-free through the “Drug-Free Marshals” program. Spawned by the “Lead the Way” campaign in 1993, the program has become one of the most successful grass-roots endeavors of its kind and today is international in scope.
The program deputizes children as “Drug-Free Marshals” who pledge to keep themselves, their friends and family drug-free by:
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