PAMPHLET TARGETS DRUG USE

The Effort Of Faith-Based Groups And Government Aims To Help Religious
Leaders Talk To Teens.

WASHINGTON - 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.