Now, as more and more individuals and groups are speaking out, young people are finding it easier to say no to drugs. Encouraged by a growing public outcry and their own strength of conviction, students are forming peer support groups in opposition to drug use. It has been encouraging to see how willingly young people take healthy attitudes and ideas to heart when they are exposed to an environment that fosters those values.
Outside the home, the school is the most influential environment for our children. This means that schools must protect children from the presence of drugs, and nurture values that help them reject drugs.
Schools Without Drugs provides the kind of practical knowledge parents, educators, students and communities can use to keep their schools drug-free. Only if our schools are free from drugs can we protect our children and insure that they can get on with the enterprise of learning.
"It is a sad and sobering reality that trying drugs is no longer the exception among high school students. It is the norm."
—California Attorney General John Van De Kemp Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1986
When 13- to 18-year-olds were asked to name the biggest problems facing young people today, drugs led their list. The proportion of teens with this perception has risen steadily in recent years. No other issue approaches this level of concern.