TRUTH TO TEENS

Kids Tune Out Adults' Messages About Booze And Drugs; But They'll
Listen To A Real Life Story From One Of Their Own

While there's lots of talk about the growing divide between the rich
and the poor, I wonder if enough attention is paid to the divide
between children and adults, especially teens and adults.

Case in point is the current mission of provincial governments to
"educate" about and "combat" the threat from methamphetamine --
a.k.a. crystal meth. Special funds are set aside to deliver sundry
programs and initiatives "designed" to reach kids.

The problem is that they almost always don't. And that's often
because they are driven from an adult perspective.

I've been to countless motivational, anti-drunk driving, and other
message assemblies in high schools. If they're entertaining enough
they make an impact that lasts until the end of the day.

The glitch is they're organized and done by adults, they're intended
to manipulate one way or the other and thus are transparent, and
don't resonate in any deep way with the kids. They tend to be another
exercise in which the authorities try to get through to the kids what
the authorities want. Kids instinctively recognize that and their
natural, developmental resistance goes up, even if only on the
unconscious level.

Kids need to rebel, they need to establish their own sense of self --
independent from their parents and adults. Kids need to take risks,
to let loose. At the same time, they need to belong, to fit in. It's
a troublesome combination when a society has become predatory.

Companies routinely target kids as consumers. They design campaigns
to get them to buy fashions, products, gadgets, lifestyles. They see
it as their right to cultivate tastes and desires to enhance sales
now and in the future. So too the illicit drug business. Addiction to
drugs is essential to maximum profits.

Of course, kids don't get that. They don't realize that they are
being so ruthlessly used and shaped.

So, how do we counter the threat from drugs -- particularly from
methamphetamine (and its prevalence in ecstasy), which actually does
seriously threaten the well-being of our kids? One recent student
assembly that I attended, and which did resonate, featured a lone
speaker in a wheelchair. He wore his baseball cap backwards, spoke
like a teenager, including a bit of swearing, and seemed much younger
than his 26 years. His was a message about drinking and driving, yet
what was unique about it was that he was all for drinking. He came
across as one of them.

So, for over an hour he drew in the audience of 400 by engaging them
with his story. It was a story they could all relate to and it was
not a lesson. Instead of teaching, he was giving the inside scoop,
info he had gleaned while going where they go.

This is precisely the model that will have maximum effect in the
quest to influence kids about crystal meth. Instead of relying on
catchy titles or slogans, carefully crafted videos, or a
preponderance of medical facts, we need to get real kids in front of
real kids. Each province should be cultivating and recruiting young
people who are recovering methamphetamine addicts to be frontline speakers.

These kids are the ones to tell their stories to the masses of
teenagers who are blissfully insulated with their feelings of
immortality and no tomorrow. They need to recount how the substance
has damaged them, the hallucinations, the depression, the volatility,
the pain. They need to tell how that never happened with pot or mushrooms.

Thus, there is no intent to lecture about "drugs" -- let that fall to
parents. There is only the intent to tell a real life story. Let the
speakers talk the way they normally do, bad language and all.

Nothing influences us more quickly and lastingly than getting
first-hand information from someone we trust and relate to. Needing
to get the car fixed, we go to a mechanic that someone we know
vouches for. Doing some travelling? We choose the hotel, restaurant,
travel agent that someone we know has good experience with. Hiking?
Don't go along that path, there's a bear up there.

Most of us appreciate and heed such inside information. Kids need
inside information. But from those who have been there, not outside
information from someone in a uniform, someone in a suit, or someone
who is not where they are at.

They need to hear from recovered dealers how teens are targeted and
sucked in. How ecstasy is routinely laced so as to increase
addictivity. They need to hear in their own language how messed up
someone got and still is from using methamphetamine.

Of course, there is a risk in this. The kids who listened to the
fellow in the wheelchair certainly won't think twice about getting
bombed on the weekend. They'll still party hard just as he did.

But many of them, some for sure, will choose not to drive afterwards
or get in someone's car who has been partying hard with them.

They'll remember how his friend was killed and how he used to
snowboard every winter and skateboard every summer. They'll remember
how small and alone he seemed in his wheelchair.

They'll remember this because when they looked at him and listened to
him they only saw themselves.