Contact: Don Feder, 508-405-1337, dfeder@rcn.com; Lisa Youngblood, 815-964-5819, lisa@worldcongress.org; both with World Congress of Families 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 /Christian Newswire/ -- On September 13, Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., a member of the World Congress of Families Management Committee, participated in a press conference of organizations opposed to California Proposition 19, a referendum which would legalize marijuana in the state. The press conference took place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Crouse released the following statement: "Over the past four decades, liberal ideas and values have often prevailed in the competition with traditional values and ideas.  My work documents the disastrous consequences suffered by several generations of our nation's children as a result of forty years of policies based on the prevailing liberal ideology and the shift away from Judeo-Christian values as the nation's moral touchstone." 

"Now, those radicals are proposing yet another assault on the nation's children.  California's Proposition 19 -- which will be on the ballot in November -- would legalize marijuana in California.  The research is clear: marijuana is a 'gateway' drug, meaning that users are susceptible to moving on to even more destructive drugs, like heroin and cocaine.  Further, we know that legalization increases use; Amsterdam liberalized their laws and marijuana use among those 18-20 years of age increased from 15 percent in 1984 to 44 percent in 1986.

"You don't have to be an expert to understand the threat that legalizing marijuana poses: drug use destroys potential and ruins lives. The damage to those who become addicted affects all who love them and takes a devastating toll on addicts' families."

Other organizations represented at the press conference included the Family Research Council, Drug Free America Foundation, National Sheriffs Association, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Drug Watch International, American Society of Addiction Medicine, National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence and National Black Church Initiative. Peter Bensinger and Jack Lawn, former administrators of the Drug Enforcement Administration, were also present, along with Robert DuPont, former president of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

After noting that teenaged drug use has declined by 25% since 2001, Calvina Fay, Executive Director of the Drug Free America Foundation, remarked, "While there is still much work to do in protecting our loved ones from the dangers of drugs, legalization is certainly not a viable solution."

Dr. Janice Crouse is a member of the Management Committee for the World Congress of Families.  She has been a featured speaker at the past four of the five Congresses.  She is an author, columnist and commentator on domestic issues, the United Nations, family, cultural and women's concerns.  Her latest book is Children at Risk: The Precarious State of Children's Well-Being in America. Dr. Crouse has twice been an official delegate to United Nations conferences. During the first Bush Administration, she was a Presidential Speech Writer. She is author of "Gaining Ground: A Profile of American Women in the Twentieth Century." The book that she co-authored, "A Different Kind of Strength," was a Conservative Book of the Month selection in 2000. She is frequently interviewed on the major television networks. Her opinion editorials and columns appear in major newspapers across the nation as well as in journals, websites and magazines, including Townhall, American Thinker, Human Events, American Spectator, and The Washington Times.

Calvina Fay addressed World Congress of Families III in Mexico City (2004) on "Drug Legalization In The New Millennium."

For more information on the World Congress of Families, visit www.worldcongress.org. To schedule an interview with Dr. Crouse or WCF Managing Director Larry Jacobs, contact WCF Communications Director Don Feder at 508-405-1337

The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and people of goodwill from more than 60  countries that seek to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the 'seedbed' of civil society (as found in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (1948).  The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois (www.profam.org).  To date, there have been five World Congresses of Families – Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004), Warsaw, Poland (2007) and Amsterdam, Netherlands (2009).  For more information, visit our website: www.worldcongress.org.