NEWS STORY: Drug Czar Teams With Faith Groups on Drug Abuse Programs

c. 2003 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Bush administration officials and clergy from a variety of faiths announced a new partnership Thursday (July 10) to encourage houses of worship and other faith-based organizations to be more involved in preventing substance abuse among youths. “The best thing in the world is to have more of them […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Bush administration officials and clergy from a variety of faiths announced a new partnership Thursday (July 10) to encourage houses of worship and other faith-based organizations to be more involved in preventing substance abuse among youths.

“The best thing in the world is to have more of them not start,” said John P. Walters, the White House drug czar, at a news conference at the National Press Club. “This is a very important step because of the influence of faith in many young people’s lives.”


Walters’ Office of National Drug Control Policy has produced several new resources, including a prevention guide for youth leaders in faith communities called “Pathways to Prevention: Guiding Youth to Wise Decisions,” and a smaller brochure offering suggestions for how faith leaders can increase their involvement on preventing drug and alcohol abuse.

Those two resources _ including 75,000 copies of the prevention guide _ were printed and developed at a cost of $115,000.

Religious leaders attending the announcement welcomed the partnership.

“We are very proud to be part of the jihad against alcohol and drugs in America,” said Sayyid Muhammad Syeed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America, noting Islam bans the use, sale and distribution of drugs.

Rabbi Eric Lankin, director of religious and educational activities for United Jewish Communities, said he expects some faith-based organizations will augment the new materials with additional resources that are specific to particular faith perspectives.

The Rev. Monifa A. Jumanne, executive director of the Health Education and Leadership Project at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, helped with the development of the guide and said it was purposely written with general language.

“We recognize the need to make it broad-based and … leave it open so that a particular faith tradition can adapt it,” she said.

Clergy acknowledged that more needs to be done within faith communities.

“I think that the Jewish community response has not been aggressive enough to address these issues,” said Lankin, adding that these new resources will spur more action. “We need to redouble our efforts because our children are as deeply affected by these issues as any other community.”


The Rev. Brenda Girton-Mitchell, director of the Washington office of the National Council of Churches, said the same is true in the church realm.

“I think that a lot of us don’t have programs that are specific to youth,” she said, noting churches are more likely to have programs for adults such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

“And so this says, `Hey, wake up. You might not even have to have NA and AA to the extent that we have it if we start getting to these young people before they get caught up in it.”

The 91-page prevention guide urges clergy to address substance abuse in sermons and includes tips for group interaction such as role-playing activities on how to deal with peer pressure. The resources, which also have been endorsed by Catholic and evangelical groups, are also available online at http://www.TheAntiDrug.com/Faith/Resources.html.

“This tool kit, I think, is going to be a lifesaver for a lot of churches that don’t know how to talk to kids about this subject but want to,” said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.

Officials of a leading church-state group, however, expressed concern about the partnership because they view it as a smaller part of a larger effort by the Bush administration to seek $600 million in funding over the next three years for drug addiction treatment programs, including faith-based ones.


“The Bush administration seems to think there’s a `faith-based’ solution to every social and medical problem in America,” the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a statement issued Thursday.

Walters said at the press conference that Thursday’s announcement was about providing more information, rather than new funding, to faith groups.

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