Young people are mixing explosive cocktail of drink and drugs

RECENT statistics and reports show that binge drinking is an increasing problem especially among the young in Ireland.

There is strong evidence that alcohol is the gateway to other drugs such as tobacco, cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine.

This gateway theory states that young people tend to start using alcohol and tobacco and then progress to marijuana and, finally, to hard drugs.

It is significant that the trend in Ireland since the mid-1990s is the mixing of alcohol with other psychoactive substances, including cannabis, ecstasy, and cocaine. Within a variety of social settings ‘going out’ increasingly holds the possibility of using illegal drugs.

We now know, for example, that drugs consumption among Irish youth rose steadily throughout the 1990s and that Ireland currently has one of the most drug-experienced youth populations in the EU.

This growing trend towards alcohol-based polydrug repertories has been noticed across Europe, where rates of drug use are much higher among the young.

In 2003, when I was president of the ASTI, I met representatives from the secondary students’ union and I asked them what were the main problems in schools, from their point of view. Their answer was pressure from the points system, binge drinking and drugs.

I wrote to every minister and party leader. Unfortunately, nothing was done.

Recently we heard from Dr Eamon Brazil that one in three admissions to already overcrowded hospital A&E departments is alcohol-related. We hear from the gardaí that in recent tit-for-tat killings over drug territory, most of the killers were high on drugs.

The Garda commissioner has referred to the connection between criminal activity and alcohol and drugs. Indeed a member of the Oireachtas has referred to the whole thing as a “ticking bomb.”

Diageo spent €300m globally marketing Smirnoff and €200m marketing Guinness last year.

It spent €40m on Irish advertising and, since 1995, Guinness has sponsored the All-Ireland hurling championship. The multi-million euro investment in the hurling championship and the fusion of these two national icons (GAA & Guinness) has been a major advertising and marketing coup. Since the deal there has been substantial progress in attendance at matches with participation having doubled and a four-fold increase in matches shown on live TV.

Rugby has the Heineken Cup. Sport has prospered financially from this relationship, so much so that this level of sponsorship is now manipulating it. Sport is now held to ransom and effectively loses control of its own activity.

The cost of alcohol abuse in Ireland is estimated by the European comparative alcohol study at €2.4 billion annually, approximately 1.7% of gross domestic product, a figure that does not include costs such as health care, road accidents, alcohol and drugs-related crime and lost productivity.

What is needed is a cultural change to make it ‘uncool’ to drink and be drunk. This will be difficult and will have to involve a cross-departmental approach on the part of Government. But as we have seen how attitudes with regard to smoking have changed, it can be done.

It will, in my opinion, have to start with the Department of Education. The Irish Medical Organisation was bitterly disappointed with the Budget last month, when it called for the banning of advertising of alcohol products and for the duty on alcohol to be increased. The National Youth Council (NYC) director has suggested a ban on drink advertising, better enforcement of existing legislation on the sale of alcohol to minors and the provision of alternative alcohol-free venues - “places that would be cool and attractive” for young people.

The NYC director also said that the focus on youth was letting older people off the hook. The young do not have very good role models among the older section of society.

Colin Farrell is reported to have said: “I wrote down how much I did in a week: 20 ecstasy tablets, four grammes of coke, six grammes of speed, half an ounce of hash, three bottles of Jack Daniel's, 12 bottles of wine, 60 pints and 280 fags.”

Will the Government challenge the vested interests of a powerful and well-resourced alcohol industry? If not, we may have to appeal to Chuck Feeney and Atlantic Philanthropies to set up an independent body to try and solve this evil.

Pat Cahill

Past President

ASTI

81 Whitehall Road

Terenure

Dublin 12