Pamphlet Targets Drug Use

White House officials unveiled a program Thursday that aims to help religious groups keep teenagers off drugs, underscoring administration efforts to forge partnerships between faith-based organizations and the federal government.

The project -- consisting of an 86-page booklet and pamphlets to aid religious youth leaders in talking to teens about drug use -- was a joint effort involving spiritual leaders, the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

“What we’re recognizing is that religion is an institution that plays an important role in this effort,” said federal drug czar John P. Walters, adding that “faith communities are uniquely situated” to help troubled individuals.

Walters estimated that during the summer, 5,800 young people each day try marijuana for the first time. Religious teens are half as likely to use marijuana as their nonreligious counterparts, according to a recent study by the American Psychological Assn.

The booklet, “Pathways to Prevention,” suggests activities, prayers and discussion techniques for youth groups in mosques, synagogues and churches to help adolescents resist peer pressure to use drugs and alcohol. The federal government and independent groups paid $115,000 to develop and print 75,000 booklets, Walters said.

“We’re not afraid to compete with the drug and alcohol culture often promoted by the media,” said Rabbi Eric Lankin, director of religious and educational activities for United Jewish Communities, who assisted Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders in creating the materials.

Some substance-abuse professionals applaud the effort to educate teenagers on a large scale.

“Any information that you can get to teens can be effective,” said Ed Smith, a senior director at Narconon Southern California, part of a chain of more than 120 substance-abuse rehabilitation centers worldwide.

Others are wary of the trend toward government-supported religious programs.

“This administration has sought repeatedly to undermine the separation of church and state,” said Robert Boston, the assistant director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “The pattern is that they start with some fairly moderate, noncontroversial program with the goal of increasing funding to religious organizations.”

Boston cited Walters’ Tuesday visit to Teen Challenge, an evangelical Christian rehabilitation center in Riverside.

The Bush administration awarded $2.2 million in grants to religious and nonprofit organizations to advance child-support enforcement earlier this year. It gave $317,000 in May to refurbish Boston’s Old North Church. Broader efforts to fund faith-based social services have stalled in Congress.