COMMENTARY: Damaging addiction to an empty old slogan
Alan Cochrane explains why he no longer thinks the Just Say No anti
drugs campaign is a good strategy

It is the very model of the responsible adult's attitude to drugs Just
Say No. Total, absolute zero tolerance. Young people must have nothing
to do with them. And that's final.

In the past, even the recent past, whenever anyone varied from that
theme, I have always joined in the castigation. It was an easy route to
follow and, superficially at least, always made perfect sense. Any
message from authority which said anything other than Just Say No could
with impunity be portrayed as tacit and wicked acceptance of drugs
and drug use.

As a society we have spent millions on the message and for the most part
have felt immensely comforted and proud of our rectitude on the matter.

The great tragedy is, however, that he people at whom the message has
been directed have not been listening. Just Say No is not just a failure
as a campaign, it is actually having an effect the complete opposite of
that which was intended.

The armies of wellmeaning ministers, civil servants and their equally
wellmeaning PR and advertasining men have failed. And people like me,
who shouted encores and encouragement from the wings, have been plain
daft to do so.

For the majority of adults who have little or no contact with the drug
culture which now infests the lives of young people, the attraction of
telling them not to go near drugs is a powerful one just as powerful
as all the other things we tell them not to do. And just as pointless.
Most of us have little comprehension of the subject and forbidding them
from getting involved is much easier than actually learning something
about the problem and trying to address it from their point of view.

My conversion came not in a blinding flash, but after talking to young
people ages between 14 and 20 over the last few weeks, where it
quickly became clear that they had nothing but contempt for our approach
and, what was more, they were not listening to it nor had any intention
of following the advice.

The sophistication about drug abuse, among even the youngest of them,
was staggering to me someone who is at least a generation away from
the problem. They are scornful of if they knoew how to articulate
their contempt the naivete od a campaign which tells them not to do
something which huge numbers of them are already doing.

This arrogance of youth is simply not going to be deflected by
straightforward negatives. We must think harder about what we are trying
to do.

And surely that is the much more pressing concern to stop young people
killing themselves with drugs.

The current official thinking has it that by continually saying 'No' we
will keep teenagers away from drugs altogether and they will not then
get themselves into a position where they can damage their bodies and
minds. That scenario conveniently, but tragically, ignores the fact that
a huge number of the people we as a society are talking to are already
doing what we are urging them not to do.

By banging away on this theme, we are trying to defy reality and, more
importantly, failing to spend what are finite resources on the real
issue.

It is too late to Just Say No.Too many young people have already said
'yes' and we will not get them back by persevering with a failed slogan.

Instead, those who order these things must accept that a complete change
of direction is required, at least for the older teenagers. Of course,
we should try to wean them away from drugs. But basically they should be
told that if they must take drugs, then there are definite and specific
dangers and they must be educated into using them safely.

The proponents of zero tolerance will hold up theit hands in horror as
I used to do and cry that this approach condones and even encourages
drug abuse. It does not it merely accepts that as a society we have
failed miserably to protect our children from the drug pushers. In
addition, confronting the world as it is and not as we would like it to
be, we should accept that many of them are already heavily involved in
the culture of substance abuse. The best we can do is to protect them
from the worst affects.

It will also be argued that the total abstinence approach will
discourage those who have not yet dabbled with drugs from their first
steps down a fairly miserable path. That is debatable. However, its
worst crime is that it ignores the plight of those already fully
committed to drug use.

They think they know what they are doing. They think they know all there
is to know about drugs and their effects. The mounting death toll tells
us that they don't and that is where the bulk of our effort should now
focus.

If there is aplace for a Just Say No campaign, then it is among the very
young children not yet in their teens, who might yet be deflected from
trying the substances their elders have taken to much alacrity.

But for the rest, the bulk of our young people, the emphasis must be
switched away from all those expensive and dogooding television
commercials and posters and the money spent instead at grassroots (if
you will forgive the pun) level in the schools and colleges, in the
pubs and clubs. There it should be spent on preaching safety and caution
and on effective counselling. This may make a bit less money for the
television companies, and the wordsmiths in the big agencies, but I am
sure they will gladly forgo their commissions for the good of society.

We must continue to insist that places of entertainment ban drugs from
their premises; and I am not suggesting that we make drugtaking easy.
But we should accept that those who want them will find them.

In Scotland, as in the rest of the UK, we know that drug abuse is the
greatest threat to our young people and we must continue to use the
criminal justice system to its utmost, and the police and other
enforcement agencies, to hammer those who trade in these deadly
commodities.

But we must accept thqat we have failed to prevent drugs taking such a
hold on so many young people and consequently those who purport to be on
the high moral ground must concede that they have failed.

Just Say No is a good slogan, but the fact is today that it is little
more than that, at least for the bulk of the audience at which it was
aimed.

It is time to abandon it before any more damage is done.