The stakes were much higher with this one, a battle between life and death—an offensive drive against the national crisis of drugs.
It’s a problem we all face. In Clark County alone, home to Las Vegas, the number of overdose deaths involving fentanyl increased 97 percent between 2020 and 2023, according to the Southern Nevada Health District. Nationwide, in 2023, the number of deaths from fentanyl overdoses surpassed 112,000.
With those statistics in mind, all through the week leading up to the game, scores of volunteers from Scientology churches and missions across the Southwest gathered at the Church of Scientology Las Vegas to take on the drug epidemic and show their personal commitment to one purpose—to share the Truth About Drugs with everyone arriving in Las Vegas for Super Bowl LVIII.
To accomplish that, Drug-Free World made available its powerful drug education materials and Truth About Drugs booklets—informational booklets that present the facts about the most commonly abused substances and empower youth to make their own decisions to live drug-free.
The line of scrimmage for this activity was the auditorium of the Church of Scientology Las Vegas where the participants collected up their boxes of Truth About Drugs booklets, mapped out their delivery zones and met up with teammates.
Then they took to the streets, distributing booklets to stores and restaurants, and to passersby on the Las Vegas Strip. Other community groups joined in, taking away boxes of booklets to distribute.
Joining the effort were former NFL safety Nick Ferguson, of Cincinnati Bengals/Chicago Bears/Buffalo Bills/New York Jets fame, and former Los Angeles Rams/Indianapolis Colts running back and Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk, who is also the campaign’s international spokesman. In this drug education game, the pair were not sharing a drive to the end zone, but instead executing a power play to make drug-free living a reality by promoting it all over media lines, with numerous interviews, appearances on TV and radio shows.
Aware of how vital it is to reach young people before drug dealers do, Marshall Faulk made it a point to reach out personally to youth at schools in the local area, lecturing on the truth about drugs and distributing hundreds of copies of the booklets to students and teachers.
“Everywhere we went, people wanted [Truth About Drugs] booklets to share with friends or family.”
“It isn’t enough to just lecture young people about saying no to drugs,” said National Drug-Free World Coordinator Jessica Hochman. “It is important to educate them so they can see the dangers of drug use for themselves and can then make their own informed decisions about drugs.”
Then came February 10, with the largest influx of volunteers arriving the day before the game. More than 100 people loaded up with boxes of booklets to distribute, traveled to their locations and went into action. They handed out booklets one-on-one to fans along the Las Vegas Strip and delivered sets of the booklets to stores and businesses for their customers and patrons.
“Everywhere we went, people wanted booklets to share with friends or family,” said one of the participants. Joining the effort were city government officials, community activists, police, and church leaders from throughout the city, who promoted the booklet distribution drive or handed out booklets themselves.
“Every day hundreds of thousands of lives are ruined by drug and alcohol abuse,” said Hochman. “Everyone involved in this campaign is completely passionate about doing something to end drug use and abuse.”
And in the end, more than 300,000 copies of the Truth About Drugs booklets had been distributed to ensure their drug-free message reached far and wide.
