Treating people with drug and alcohol addition is very difficult. Preventing many of them from becoming addicted in the first place is a good way to avoid many of the problems caused by drug and alcohol addition.
In Iceland, teenage smoking, drinking and drug use have been radically cut in the past 20 years.
“We didn’t say to them, you’re coming in for treatment. We said, we’ll teach you anything you want to learn: music, dance, hip hop, art, martial arts.” The idea was that these different classes could provide a variety of alterations in the kids’ brain chemistry, and give them what they needed to cope better with life: some might crave an experience that could help reduce anxiety, others may be after a rush.
At the same time, the recruits got life-skills training, which focused on improving their thoughts about themselves and their lives, and the way they interacted with other people. “The main principle was that drug education doesn’t work because nobody pays attention to it. What is needed are the life skills to act on that information,” Milkman says. Kids were told it was a three-month programme. Some stayed five years.
A few factors emerged as strongly protective: participation in organised activities – especially sport – three or four times a week, total time spent with parents during the week, feeling cared about at school, and not being outdoors in the late evenings.
Elsewhere, cities that have joined Youth in Europe are reporting other benefits. In Bucharest, for example, the rate of teen suicides is dropping alongside use of drink and drugs. In Kaunas, the number of children committing crimes dropped by a third between 2014 and 2015.
The solutions Iceland experimented with can’t be copied directly for elsewhere, cultures are different. But many of the concepts and practices can be adopted elsewhere. The idea of investing in helping teenagers live happy, engaged lives instead of locking up teenagers acting out is something we would all benefit from.
Related: The Causes of Drug Addiction are Complex – The War on Drugs has been a Huge Failure with Massive Unintended Consequences – Funding Drug Addiction Treatment Would Cost 1/7 the Cost of the Current Criminal System Focused Policy – Almost everything we think we know about addiction is wrong