National Families in Action is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization that was founded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1977. The organization obtained the nation?s first state laws banning the sale of drug paraphernalia. It led a national effort to help parents replicate Georgia?s laws in other states to prevent the marketing of drugs and drug use to children and helped them form parent groups to protect children?s health.
During the 1980s, Sue Rusche, the organization?s director,wrote a twice-weekly column on drug abuse thatwas syndicated by King Features to some 100 newspapersacross the nation.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, National Families inAction published Drug Abuse Update, a quarterly publicationthat highlighted scientific research about alcohol,tobacco, and other drugs, their impact on the brain andbody, and the work done by all segments of society toreduce drug use, abuse, addiction, and other high-riskbehaviors.
With demonstration grants from the Center for SubstanceAbuse Prevention in the 1990s, the organizationworked with families in inner-city Atlanta public housingcommunities to help parents protect their childrenfrom the crack epidemic and to help parents and teachersconduct an after-school program, Club HERO, forsixth-grade students at a large, inner- city middleschool.
National Families in Action co-founded the AddictionStudies Program for Journalists with Wake Forest UniversitySchool of Medicine in 1999. This effort is fundedby the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as is the Addiction Studies Program for the States which beganin 2005. The Treatment Research Institute and theNational Conference of State Legislatures became twoadditional partners for the states program.
Both programs seek to provide a basic understandingof the science that underlies drug abuse and addictionto help journalists write more scientifically accuratestories about drugs and to help lawmakers and executivebranch administrators implement more effectivedrug policies in their states.
To further educate the public about the impact of addictivedrugs on the brain and behavior, the program?sdirectors wrote False Messengers: How AddictiveDrugs Change the Brain (Friedman and Rusche, HarwoodAcademic Books, 1999).
In 2003, with a $4.2 million grant from Congress, NationalFamilies in Action created the Parent Corps via apilot program conducted in 19 schools in nine states.The program received a no-cost extension to operatefor a fourth year through 2007. It currently continuesin two Georgia schools with private funding. U.S. RepresentativeJohn Lewis has introduced the NationalParents Corps Act to make the Parent Corps a permanentinstitution in the effort to protect adolescentsfrom high-risk behaviors that endanger their health,safety, and well-being.