NEWS: Policy on drugs endangers youth

[thestudent14]

When you get to high school, you are taught that drugs are ''bad''. The teachers show you pictures and tell you the horror stories about drugs, but at that age, you can never really believe that something which looks like a sugar pill can wreak all that damage and the stories never really quench any curiosity.

The kids at my high school, and others, started experimenting with drugs about the age of 16, when most of us were in year 9. It was mainly cannabis that they would smoke after school and it was usually the ''cool'' kids.

But in years 10 and up, the appeal of drugs widened. Whole groups of friends were made around the rave culture and moved towards harder drug experimentation.

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Raving is where large groups of young adults of varying ages would dance to electronic beats while ''pinging''. The locations of these raves were often released the same day they occurred to avoid detection.

These kids would practice their rave moves in their lunch break and were very open about what they did if you asked. Other groups would experiment at parties or within their group of friends.

High school is very much a time of social experimentation and drugs seemed to become an integral component of the high school experience for some people. The criminalisation of drugs means experimentation can be harder and riskier. Often kids won't know what they are taking or can take very dangerous risks in mixing their drugs. If something goes wrong, the fear of their parents, of the police and what they might do, often stops them from calling an ambulance. It was understood that you didn't call an ambulance if something went wrong.

I personally have never taken any drugs besides alcohol for my own reasons. People often don't believe me, and whenever I decline an offer of drugs it can be met with incredulity.

My friends have shielded me from a lot of the social stigma that is attached to being ''anti-drugs'' as I came to that resolution quite early in my high school years. Some people will want an explanation, while others may just write you off. I have always been very curious about drugs and a lot of my closest friends have experimented a lot with different kinds of drugs.

At my year 12 formal I found myself the only sober and drug-free individual in my group of friends. They had all taken a pill halfway through the night and had a connection that I was never going to be able to replicate. They had done something dangerous together, bonded and experienced the same trip.

At university, it became more common to experiment with drugs or smoke pot with everyone upstairs at a party or, for a lot of people in hospitality, just to get through the night at work. There was still the criminal risk associated with it, which could give them a permanent criminal record and devastate their future job prospects, depending on what they wanted to do. But everyone else was doing it, so it didn't seem to matter so much.

Drugs have become so normalised in today's youth culture the penalties just don't matter as much. Not only that, but the subcultures with the highest rates of drug consumption - raves, clubs, music festivals and hospitality - have the police almost turning a blind eye to small rates of drug consumption because it is already so common. Prohibition is not working.

In Portugal, drugs were decriminalised in 2001. Today there is a bulk of evidence pointing to Portugal as a leader in drug reform. Not only have rates of drug use declined in almost every measured category, but Portugal also has the least amount of drug use when compared with the EU countries with more stringent criminalisation measures.

A prominent white paper by Glenn Greenwald on the Portugal decriminalisation also documented an absolute decrease in prevalence rates of drug use in the 15 to 19 age group, a milestone for youth health. The evidence in Portugal shows decriminalisation would save the Australian government upward of $2 billion on police, judicial, legal and corrective expenditure, and also decrease the harm that is happening to the young people in Australia.

Our drug policy is a public health issue. It is criminalising kids and endangering the health and safety of the youth of today. My experience has shown me drugs aren't going away. It has shown me prohibition has failed.

Australia needs to look for a better way of dealing with drug use than turning a blind eye or punishing those who fall prey to the allure of the promise of happiness in a pill. Portugal's decriminalisation demonstrates there is a viable alternative that we should be seriously considering.

Vivienne Moxham-Hall is completing a masters of health policy at the University of Sydney. She participated in the Australia21 roundtable and will be part of a public forum hosted by the Herald and Sydney Ideas tonight.

Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU


Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/s...ngers-youth-20120520-1yys3.html#ixzz1viDDJgOu

http://media.smh.com.au/news/national-news/should-the-government-decriminalise-drugs-3314805.html


More media in the right direction ^.^
I do love to rave haha 8)

 

[footscrazy]

I thought that was going to go in the opposite direction when I started reading.

It's cool that someone who has decided not to use drugs is in support of decriminalisation. I think those against decriminalisation can look at drug users calling for it as just trying to secure themselves a cheaper, more easily accessible habit.

 

[CrayZ]

"...those who fall prey to the allure of the promise of happiness in a pill."

I think this is a misunderstanding. Drugs don't define the experience, they merely enhance it (most of the time). This is no different to having a few drinks to loosen up with friends. Good article though. I actually feel sorry for her in relation to her year 12 formal - sounds like she missed out on a a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I also think drug education in primary schools is detrimental. My kids still have to endure Healthy Harold - a freakin puppet show ffs. They even comment on how lame it is.

 

[DeathDomokun]

That's the thing, you can't just say "drugs ...." because 'drugs' is far too broad and vague.
Different drugs do different things, and different people use them for different reasons in different circumstances.
I don't think drug education is detrimental at all. Drug propaganda on the other hand.. That fucking giraffe came to my school in a caravan to feed me bullshit!
I don't care about a lot of the things, hmmm, I don't know the words to use, maybe more political or less apathetic or I'm not really sure but a lot of the people here seem to care much more about things the government does in relation to drugs than I do.
I mean with this issue, I educated myself about drugs early on in high school, in my 'free time' by my own will, and all the propaganda just got an added dose of humour.

 

[TangerinO]

That's the thing, you can't just say "drugs ...." because 'drugs' is far too broad and vague.
Different drugs do different things, and different people use them for different reasons in different circumstances.
I don't think drug education is detrimental at all. Drug propaganda on the other hand.. That fucking giraffe came to my school in a caravan to feed me bullshit!
I don't care about a lot of the things, hmmm, I don't know the words to use, maybe more political or less apathetic or I'm not really sure but a lot of the people here seem to care much more about things the government does in relation to drugs than I do.
I mean with this issue, I educated myself about drugs early on in high school, in my 'free time' by my own will, and all the propaganda just got an added dose of humour.

I personally view it as a human rights issue.
I mean I do some form of illegal drugs, usually smoking weed most every day, and it's so common place to me I often forget it as actually against the law.

Then you realise when smoking that bong, or dropping that pill or whatever, that people are literally in jail because of prohibition. That's real. They live in a cell day in day out, for the "crime" of supplying these very drugs that I do on a regular basis.
It's fucked up that there are people sitting in jails, for nothing but pure political bullshit.

Not to mention the drug policy has been conclusively proven useless, costs the taxpayers stupid amounts of money, and does more harm than good in the first place.

The whole thing is just a big mess, and it's frustrating that your average person doesn't see that.

 

[DeathDomokun]

Yeah, I agree. I mean, in the words of Terence McKenna 'We're playing with half a deck as long as we tolerate that the cardinals of government and science should dictate where human curiousity can legitimately send its attention and where it can not. It's an essentially preposterous situation. It is essentially a civil rights issue, because what we're talking about here is the repression of a religious sensibility. In fact, not a religious sensibility, the religious sensibility. Not built on some con game spun out by eunichs, but based on the symbiotic relationship that was in place for our species for fifty thousand years before the advent of history, writing, priestcraft and propaganda. So it's a clarion call to recover a birthright.'
When I said a lot of things, the legal consequences of using drugs was not included.