Volunteers from the Foundation for a Drug-Free World handed out 300,000 copies of drug education booklets during the UEFA football games.

A coalition of drug prevention activists in France spent the past month bringing the truth about drugs to hundreds of thousands of football fans and local residents during the Euro 2016 football championships.

From June 10 to July 10 the volunteers carried out events at the 14 stadiums where the matches were held. Then, continuing their activities through Bastille Day, July 14, they handed out a total of 300,000 copies of the acclaimed drug education booklets of The Truth About Drugs initiative.

Euro 2016 presented the perfect opportunity to take effective action to counter drug abuse in Europe. And based on statistics published by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), drug prevention is vital for the people of these countries:

• In France, lifetime prevalence rates for cannabis among people aged 15–64 increased from 22.5 percent in the year 2000 to 40.9 percent in 2014.
  
• The use of cocaine, the second most widely used illicit drug in the country, has also increased steadily since 2000.
  
• It is estimated that over 70,000 lives were lost to drug overdoses in Europe in the first decade of the 21st century.
  
• MDMA, or Ecstasy, is the stimulant drug of choice for young people in Europe. Some 2.1 million young adults (15–34 years) reported using MDMA in the last year.
  
• New psychoactive substances (NPS) continue to wreak havoc, with the EMCDDA issuing 34 public health alerts to the Member States relating to the use of NPS since 2014.
  
• The number, type and availability of NPS on the European market continue to grow, with over 560 NPS now monitored by the agency.
  
• Synthetic cannabinoids, sold as “legal” replacements for cannabis, can be highly toxic, and mass poisonings have been reported.
  
• Synthetic cathinones, sold as “legal” replacements for stimulants such as amphetamine, MDMA and cocaine, have been linked to almost 200 acute intoxications and over 100 deaths since 2011.
  

Published by the Foundation for a Drug-Free World, The Truth About Drugs series of booklets present factual information about the most commonly abused drugs. Their hard-hitting approach helps the individual make a self-determined decision to cease taking harmful drugs or to not experiment with them in the first place.

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The Church of Scientology and its members support the Truth About Drugs initiative and makes these booklets, videos and other educational materials available free of charge to anyone wishing to use them to help eradicate drug abuse and addiction.