FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jennifer de Vallance (202) 395–6618
October 22, 2002
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association Emphasizes Importance
Of Parent-Child Communication to Prevent Drug Use
White House Drug Czar Recognizes National Health Insurer
For Pitching In on Drug Prevention
(Chicago)—The Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, John P. Walters, yesterday personally recognized the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and its 800 employees for their support of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's participation is part of the Media Campaign's most recent initiative seeking support from Corporate America in preventing youth drug use.
While visiting Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's Chicago headquarters, Walters praised the company's participation in the Anti-Drug Campaign. "It is critical that companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield join in the effort to keep America's future generations healthy and drug-free. This company and its hard-working, dedicated employees recognize that parents and other caring adults are the most important factors in keeping kids away from drugs."
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association emphasizes the importance of parent - child communication to its employees and community partners, and has developed the Healthy Competition Foundation, which is dedicated to educating parents, coaches and teens about the dangers of performance enhancing drugs.
By partnering with the Media Campaign, the Association will incorporate other drug prevention materials into its efforts. For example, the Association is distributing the parenting brochure Keeping your Kids Drug-Free: A How To Guide for Parents and Caregivers to 800 employees in Chicago and Washington, and displaying Anti-Drug posters throughout offices in Chicago and Washington. In addition, the group is promoting the Media Campaign on its Healthy Competition Web site throughout October's drug awareness month by incorporating links to the AntiDrug.com and Freevibe.com Web sites.
"Employers have a vested interest in helping their employees prevent family substance abuse," said Scott Serota, chief executive officer, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. "As America's leading group of health insurance companies with 84.7 million subscribers, we have a unique obligation to take a leadership position in protecting the health of America's youth."
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is the trade association for the independent and locally operated Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans. With 43 member companies, the Association serves more than 80 million Americans across the United States. For more information about the Healthy Competition Foundation, visit the Web site at www.healthycompetition.org.
In 1998, with the bipartisan support of Congress and the President, ONDCP created the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, an effort designed to educate and empower youth to reject illicit drugs. Counting on an unprecedented blend of public and private partnerships, non-profit community service organizations, volunteerism, and youth-to-youth communications, the Campaign is designed to reach Americans of diverse backgrounds wherever they live, learn, work, play and practice their faith.
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For more information on the ONDCP National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign visit www.mediacampaign.org, www.freevibe.com, or www.theantidrug.com
