UNITED STATES

Drug-Free Marshals earned first place in a Sacramento holiday parade.

The program deputizes children as “Drug-Free Marshals” who pledge to keep themselves, their friends and family drug-free by:

“1. Living a drug-free life.
“2. Showing my friends that a drug-free life is more fun.
“3. Helping my fellow Drug-Free Marshals.
“4. Learning more about how drugs really harm people.
“5. Telling people the truth about the harmful effects of drugs.
“6. Helping my family and friends be drug-free.
“7. Setting a good example to all children by leading the way to a Drug-Free USA.”

The program began in April 1993 when two hundred children between the ages of six and thirteen were sworn in by the director of the Los Angeles FBI’s Drug Demand Reduction Program. Since that time, tens of thousands of children and adults — including US senators and congressmen, state legislators, mayors, judges and police chiefs — have signed this pledge.