Drug-Free World promoted active, healthy, drug-free living at the 2024 Rink Hockey World Skate Games in Italy
With Novara hosting the 2024 World Rink Hockey Championships at the World Skate Games this September, Drug-Free World volunteers organized an outreach campaign to promote drug-free living. Using Foundation for a Drug-Free World’s Truth About Drugs materials, the campaign raised awareness about the dangers of commonly abused drugs and encouraged athletes, fans, and local residents to commit to a drug-free lifestyle. The volunteers also invited them to join the drug education and prevention movement.
The World Skate Games 2024 showcased 12 exhilarating sports, including roller freestyle, skateboarding, and scootering, high-speed events such as speed skating, skate-cross, and downhill, along with rink hockey and other team sports. The international competition drew participants and fans from across the globe, making it an ideal venue for Drug-Free World’s outreach.
The statistics on drug use in Italy highlight the urgency of the Drug-Free World campaign:
- One-third of Italy’s population has experimented with drugs.
- $15 billion worth of drugs are consumed annually in Italy.
- 6,600 crimes are committed each day in the country, many of them drug-related.
- Hundreds of Italians die from drug-related causes each year.
“Our aim is to raise awareness of the harmful effects of drugs, promote healthy, drug-free lifestyles, and help people free themselves from addiction with drug education and prevention,” says Oreste Depaoli, who heads the Foundation for a Drug-Free World Italy.
Volunteers from throughout Northern and Central Italy and Switzerland joined the Novara Drug-Free World team to hand out the Foundation’s Truth About Drugs booklets to the thousands who attended the games.
This year’s UN Office on Drugs and Crime campaign reinforces the importance of prevention, with the motto: “The evidence is clear: invest in prevention.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said “Breaking the cycle of suffering means starting at the beginning, before drugs take hold.”
Foundation for a Drug-Free World, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, holds consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Thanks to the support of Churches of Scientology and Scientologists, the Foundation makes its acclaimed secular drug education and prevention materials and programs available free of charge to anyone who wishes to use them to educate others. The Foundation’s work is inspired by humanitarian and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, who observed, “Research has demonstrated that the single most destructive element present in our current culture is drugs.”
Depaoli, passionate about preventing addiction, regularly organizes motorbike tours and other sports-related events to disseminate Truth About Drugs booklets and audiovisual materials.
His work is featured in an episode of Voices for Humanity, highlighting the Dico NO alla Droga campaign. The episode is available on DIRECTV Channel 320, DIRECTV STREAM, AT&T U-verse, on Scientology.tv, mobile apps and via the Roku, Amazon Fire and Apple TV platforms.
