Pubdate: Thu, 24 Aug 2000
Source: Irish Examiner (Ireland)
Copyright: Examiner Publications Ltd, 2000
Contact:  http://www.examiner.ie/

POLICY ON ILLEGAL DRUG USE IS OUT OF TOUCH WITH IRISH YOUTH

Whichever technique of measuring young people's drug use we apply, 
household surveys, school administered surveys or analysis of official 
treatment and offending rates, the problem continues to grow.

Recently released ISPCC figures created media headlines. These headline 
figures are, however, subject to a number of ambiguities which need to be 
better understood if we are to make any progress in understanding the 
apparent growth in drug taking among young Irish people.

Firstly we need to recognise that these figures come as no surprise to 
young people themselves. In point of fact they suggest that the attitude of 
young Irish people towards drug taking is at variance with the official or 
established line on the issue. The trend in Irish drug taking behaviour 
mirrors that of our nearest neighbour, Britain, insofar as we are 
witnessing a process of normalisation of recreational drug use amongst 
young people. The gap between our official attitude towards rule breaking 
and the experiences of young people engaging in illegal leisure activities 
is widening. A number of key factors lie behind this trend.

Drug taking in Ireland, which started in the late 1960s and soared in the 
past decade, coincided with the modernisation of Irish society.

During this period of rapid change the traditional institutions (church, 
family, local community) governing the behaviour of young Irish people lost 
their capacity to maintain control. The traditional balance between 
individualism and social regulation was upset and the belief that Irish 
society is united around a single shared culture was increasingly 
challenged by an emerging youth culture.

Initially Irish youth culture, nurtured by music, literature, cinema and 
television from abroad, and sustained by indigenous social change, came 
into existence as a transient sub culture. The dominant values of this new 
cultural force, hedonism, leisure and immediate gratification, reflected 
the hitherto dormant inner world of Irish adolescence.

Drug taking, initially a rite of passage for some young people, soon became 
a more established pattern of behaviour for others. Research verified the 
emergence of a heroin problem concentrated among unemployed early school 
leavers living in inner city Dublin and the local authority housing estates 
around the capital's perimeter.

The surge in opiate usage from the early 1980s called forth a general war 
on drugs which failed to distinguish between the recreational activities of 
teenagers using so called soft drugs -- cannabis, alcohol and hallucinogens 
- -- and the very different pattern of drug taking prevalent in some 
disadvantaged communities.

Declaring war on drugs and categorising all drug users as deviants 
contributed to the development of a counter culture which finds itself in 
complete opposition to the dominant societal values defining drug taking in 
black and white terms alone.

Consequently the war on drugs is seen by many young people as a war on 
them, their aspirations, their identities and their natural proclivity for 
pleasure and thrills. As the availability and supply of designer fun drugs 
(such as ecstasy) increased during the eighties and nineties the 
credibility gap between the drugtakers and the lawmakers widened. Young 
people's experiences were and still are not taken seriously. Official 
propaganda still portrays those involved in illicit drug taking as 
suffering from pathological or criminal tendencies or both. Young 
recreational drug users reject these labels. Youth culture counters these 
arguments every weekend in every town, city and village in Ireland.

Drug taking on a widespread basis is a visible activity throughout Ireland. 
Most young people engage in this activity at some stage or other -- if they 
don't do it with illicit drugs, they do it with alcohol or legally 
prescribed drugs. In general those young people involved in recreational 
drug use are unlikely to engage in acquisitive or violent crime.

Their drug taking is funded from legitimate sources -- pocket money and 
part time work. The official profile of a drug user no longer fits. Young 
drug users are not primarily unemployed young men -- women are as likely to 
participate in recreational drug use -- from deprived backgrounds. They are 
young men and women from all social backgrounds but with an increasing 
tendency to be well adjusted, successful young citizens. The attitude of 
most young people towards recreational drug use is to see it as normal 
youth culture behaviour.

This attitude is manifested in their acceptance of drugs being used in all 
places where youth gather unsupervised: pubs, discos , friends' houses, 
parties, concerts, raves.

Those who are not taking drugs are regularly found in situations where 
friends or relatives are taking drugs. Unless they intend to entirely 
withdraw from all social contact with their friends and acquaintances and 
stay at home, they must come to terms with the recreational drug scene.

The resultant conflict of attitudes between those who have few negative 
experiences with drugs and those engaged in a blanket war on all drugs 
(making no distinction between opiates and other drugs) contributes in no 
small way to an overall collapse of the moral authority of the law.

Against the backdrop of tribunals, political corruption and widespread 
white collar crime young people are keenly aware that if you smoke 
marijuana in one type of social setting you may find yourself arrested, in 
another social setting ignored. Young recreational drug users are acutely 
aware of the arbitrary processes which may criminalise and stigmatise them 
on their otherwise law abiding journey to young citizenship.

Law makers, law enforcement officers and the court system appear to young 
people to be more interested in apprehending occasional cannabis smokers 
than those investigated by the McCracken, Moriarty and Flood Tribunals.

If we wish to truly understand the attitudes of young people towards drugs 
we must adopt the following two approaches: firstly commission and fund in 
depth longitudinal research studies into Irish youth culture; and secondly 
undertake a root and branch review of our present policies and practices 
around dealing with illegal leisure pursuits.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens