Is the Pro Football Hall-of-Famer going to talk about his career, his records, his rushing yards, his conversions or college football days?
None of the above.
He’s going to talk about drugs. And about kids on drugs.
One of his earliest memories was as a kid himself, when he saw a man lying on the sidewalk, strung out. Raised in New Orleans on the wrong side of the tracks and well-acquainted with poverty, he was not also—thanks to his parents—acquainted with ignorance.
“That right there,” they told him, pointing at the man, “that’s what drugs do to you.”
It was a lesson he would never forget.
“It’s that ripple effect. And the data says we’re making an impact.”
It’s why Marshall Faulk came home to New Orleans, the site of this year’s Super Bowl. But he wasn’t on the field playing, or on the sidelines coaching or even in the TV booth doing color commentary. He was on the ground, fielding questions from press as an international spokesman for Drug-Free World and discussing the importance of prevention through education.
“Education. That’s the best approach,” he tells Freedom. “The more we educate, the more they educate others. I talk to some kids, then they talk to other kids. That’s when you know it’s working. It’s that ripple effect. And the data says we’re making an impact.”
Last week, in his hometown, Faulk revisited his old school, George Washington Carver High, in the Desire neighborhood of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward. He’d been there some years ago as well, when he was honored for his induction into the Hall of Fame. Faulk did interviews and talked football. But this time was more meaningful, he says. This time, his alma mater honored him for his achievements off the field—for the lives he’s saved from the scourge of drug abuse. This time, a packed gymnasium, including New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick and US Congressman Troy A. Carter, were on hand to thank him. A mural unveiled on the gym’s wall included Faulk in the school’s football uniform fending off another player on his way to the end zone. But in the mural, it’s not a pigskin Faulk carries, but the world—and the opposing player has, emblazoned on his helmet, the word “DRUGS.”
“To get acknowledged for community service and helping people—not just sports—I’ll never forget it,” he said.
After the presentation, Faulk spoke to students about drugs and their effects. “I could tell the kids were leaning in to what I was saying,” he recalled. “I could tell the message was getting through and that they’d pass it on to their friends. That’s what it’s all about.”
Faulk’s Drug-Free World message of prevention through education has resonated from the streets all the way up to the corridors of power, where the Louisiana House of Representatives enshrined February 5, 2025, as “Marshall Faulk Day.”
“Beyond football,” the proclamation read, “Mr. Faulk is dedicated to making a positive impact in his community by working with the Foundation for a Drug-Free World and empowering local youth to make healthy, positive choices and to live a drug-free life.”
It’s been quite the journey for the kid from New Orleans—from slums to football hero to drug education advocate—all chronicled on Scientology Network. Once in a blue moon, destiny grants a platform as wide as the world to a kid whose world once consisted of dead-end streets littered with heroin needles and human wreckage. And Faulk seized it.
We should all be grateful he did: More than 16 percent of Americans use illicit drugs. Someone dies of an overdose every six minutes. Over 48 million Americans suffer from substance abuse. Fourteen million Americans over the age of 12 abuse prescription drugs every year.
Fentanyl is the culprit in the city, with 86 percent of drug fatalities stemming from the opioid.
Marshall Faulk’s weapon against the monster is the Truth About Drugs, the largest non-governmental anti-drug information and prevention campaign on Earth, sponsored by the Church of Scientology and spearheaded by Scientology ecclesiastical leader David Miscavige. At the core of the program are 14 fact-filled booklets that—without hype or scare tactics—provide essential information on the most commonly abused drugs, empowering readers to make their own decision to live drug-free.
Faulk has no illusions about what he and his team are up against: both drug dealers operating in the back alleys of neighborhoods across the world and pharmaceutical companies operating from their plush business suites. Together, they seem to have unlimited finance and resources, their tentacles reaching into every corner of society.
“We just have to keep pounding the pavement,” Faulk says. “We can’t let up because we’ll never have the resources that the drug pushers have. We’ve got to continue.”
The fight continued this Super Bowl weekend, when over 100 volunteers from across the country gathered for the express purpose of getting the Truth About Drugs booklets out to hundreds of thousands. Their presence was felt at Saturday’s Super Bowl parade down Decatur Street, onto Poydras Street, and ending at St. Charles Avenue, as the turquoise-shirted teams fanned out through the French Quarter and Jackson Square, engaging people in conversations, answering questions and handing out booklets at shops, restaurants and to passersby on the street.
On Sunday, the line of scrimmage moved to Caesars Superdome and the adjacent streets and parking lots—everywhere there were people to be talked to and youth to be educated before the drug dealers could get to them first.
Joining the effort, city officials, community activists, law enforcement and religious leaders also participated, promoting or passing out Truth About Drugs booklets themselves. In all, over 350,000 booklets were distributed.
The need has never been greater: New Orleans is in the grip of a drug abuse crisis, with death rates attributed to drug overdoses continuing to rise at an alarming rate. Fentanyl is the culprit in the city, with 86 percent of drug fatalities stemming from the opioid. Louisiana’s overdose death rate is nearly double the national average, and the state is behind only West Virginia, the District of Columbia, Tennessee and Delaware in fatalities stemming from substance abuse.
But to date, and with Faulk’s help, 160 million Truth About Drugs booklets in 17 languages have been distributed across 188 countries. In the last year alone, Drug-Free World held 1,700 events, reached more than 100 nations and saturated nearly 250 cities and towns.
“And we’re not just having conversations with people. We’re looking them in the eyes and we’re explaining to them what we’re doing and why it’s important,” Faulk says. “And to a person, when they take the booklets and they take the information, change is happening.”
With the booklets and conversations, with the one-by-one approach, with education and care, Marshall Faulk—who once made a living in a game where you knock people down and run past them—is now raising people up and carrying them with him.
So Marshall Faulk, one of the greatest running backs of all time, now has your back and mine… and the backs of a lot of others.
Next stop: Super Bowl LX, LXI, LXII and as many more Super Bowls as it takes for another 100,000, 10 million or 100 million conversations about the most important game on Earth: the battle against drugs.
