Our inadequate response to drugs and drink
Blame has been apportioned to various causes such as drinks promotions, advertising and sponsorship.
In this regard, It is useful to reflect on a survey of drug use among students, recently published by the Union of Students in Ireland, revealed that just over 50% of third-level students have tried illegal drugs, two-thirds of them first doing so in secondary school. Elsewhere, the National Drug Treatment Reporting System reveals that one in eight of those seeking treatment relating to ecstasy between 1996 and 1999 was still in school. The figures in many communities are a great deal higher than those cited above.
There is no doubting the high levels of use and abuse of drugs of all kinds both here and in the United Kingdom. We know a good deal about the supply side, but how do we explain the enormous level of demand? I am unaware of any promotions of illegal drugs in our higher education colleges. There is no advertising for cannabis, LSD, ecstasy or heroin in any legitimate medium that I know of. No sports event is sponsored by any of our leading cannabis or heroin importers or distributors. Clearly, other factors are at work, but what are these?
The USI report indicates the importance of peer factors, reporting that 85% of users were introduced to drugs by friends.
Peer and cultural factors are also highly influential regarding alcohol. While it is convenient to blame supply-side factors such as longer opening hours, super-pubs, drinks advertising and sponsorship for excessive drinking, doing so allows us to evade the real questions.
Why is it that the peoples of Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries drink and take drugs as they do? Why do young people need to get out of their heads in one or more ways in order to engage in relatively ordinary social intercourse?
Why must so many young people’s early engagement with alcohol be covert, uncontrolled, peer-guided and excessive by definition?
UK research shows quite clearly that the most significant indicator of future problems is not the age at which a child begins to drink, but the age at which s/he does so unsupervised.
Why is society so hostile to young people gathering in public places, and so keen to drive them from public view? At least when you can see them, you know what they are doing. Why are there no credible (or “cool”, if you will) non-drink, non-drug activities for youngsters in so many areas of the country, and when there are, why are they closed down as happened with the Blast club in Temple Bar?
Why is narcosis so central to sexual initiation, and at (apparently) such early ages?
Finally, given that peer culture is so significant, how do we help young people to resist, challenge and change that culture? If we are serious about reducing the abuse of drugs and alcohol in the societies of Ireland, the UK and the Nordic countries, we need to find answers to questions like these. Doing so means more than finding scapegoats. It means looking in the mirror and taking responsibility for what we see there.
Dermot Stokes,
National Co-ordinator,
YOUTHREACH,
c/o CDU, Sundrive Road,
Dublin 12
www.youthreach.ie
