IT'S SHOCKING WE FIND ANYTHING SHOCKING ABOUT KIDS TODAY

There is a category of news story that might be called Kids Today! and
it has been around as long as there has been movable type. Adults have
always been easily shocked, and more than a little titillated, by what
teenagers are doing, and the shock finds its way onto page one.

Yesterday it was a headline -- "Marijuana easier to get at school than
cigarettes, teens say." In 1440, when Gutenberg was making the modern
newspaper possible, it might have been "Teens wear short hair,
doublets and flock to hot new dance sensation, the ballet."

And so it has gone, through the flapper era and Blackboard Jungle and,
more recently, more than you needed to read about things happening in
the dark, or sometimes even the light.

Shock is the coinage of the news media, and even if we are not shocked
ourselves, we will print something not all that shocking if we think
anyone at all will be shocked by it.

Hence, teens and marijuana. A study commissioned by Health Canada says
teens have easier access to marijuana than cigarettes, not necessarily
because marijuana is all that accessible, but because traditional
cigarettes all of a sudden aren't.

There are age limits in stores these days, whereas there is no age
limit on the purchase of marijuana, since selling it is illegal.

It all makes a peculiar kind of sense. And if the logic were to be
followed, someone is sure to argue that marijuana should be legalized
in order to make it less accessible to teenagers.

You can picture some Liberal standing up in the House of Commons and
saying: "We'll put it into corner stores and teens won't be old enough
to buy it there."

If that sounds illogical to you, consider the fact that the study in
question was designed to help the government find and recommend coping
and refusal skills for teenagers.

Refusal skills -- that's government speak for being able to say
no.

This adds a peculiar Canadian irony to the situation: the same
government that is going to decriminalize the stuff is looking for
ways to help kids say no to it.

Shocking.

The Health Canada study goes on to give the unshocking news that more
marijuana is being smoked in this country, the numbers showing that 30
per cent of 15- to 17-year-olds had used it in the last year, and 47
per cent of 18- and 19-year-olds.

Not so shocking. Tobacco products have been taking quite a beating in
the media and in society as a whole. Kids in school learn that smoking
is bad for them. It even says so on the package. Meanwhile, out in the
real world, smokers are being forced to step outside. In restaurants,
bars, shopping centres and office buildings, smokers are not welcome.
No wonder that message is getting across to teens. You hardly need a
refusal skill at all to say no.

The publicity around marijuana smoking, on the other hand, has been
relatively positive. It concentrates on the injustice done to users
when they are imprisoned or given criminal records. Marijuana smoking
even gets a kind of back-handed endorsement from the government, with
each mention of its plans to decriminalize.

Those too young to be affected by what is in the media have the most
uncomplicated reaction. Smoking anything is bad for you, according to
the 10- to-12-year-olds focus-grouped for the study. Smoking is
shocking, in other words.

When they get a bit older, they begin to get more complicated
messages, about what is cool and what is not, about what their friends
are doing and what the law allows.

Then they are less easily shocked and more in need of refusal
skills.

In looking for ways to shock them again, to help them to say no,
Health Canada could concentrate on a bill that is a companion to the
one decriminalizing marijuana. That's the one that will attempt to
stop driving while under the influence of drugs. That kind of smoking
is not good for you either.

In getting that negative message out, in order to help teenagers with
their refusal skills, the government may have to fight its way past
news media dominated by boomers who grew up in the days when marijuana
was indeed cool, and who are reluctant to appear uncool by stressing
the less-than-wonderful aspects of marijuana use.

Marijuana messes with your head? Makes you a bad driver, a shaky
decision-maker?

Shocking.