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.