In recent years, the campaign to educate teens and families on the dangers of drug use has shown progress in deterring many young people from abusing recreational drugs. Yet now the problem of prescription drug use has emerged as the leading source of abuse by many teens, which presents a whole new challenge for schools and parents.
But what message are we sending youngsters in a society where substance use and abuse are both derided and embraced, sometimes without a pause in-between?
On the one hand, teens get direction and education in school on the dangers of alcohol and drug use. Health classes now focus on the issue to help youngsters make wiser choices.
But the same kids then go home to a pop-culture society that still embraces its intoxicants more openly than ever.
Watch a few minutes of network or cable TV. You can't watch a ballgame without seeing multiple beer commercials touting the social benefits of tossing back a few cold ones. With humor and even sex appeal, beer and liquor companies make their products seem glamorous and desirable, especially to those too young to appreciate the downsides of heavy drinking.
As for drug use, no, we don't see ads on TV for marijuana or other recreational drugs. Yet we are inundated with ads for prescription cures for every malady imaginable, including some afflictions most of us never knew existed. The lesson: Better living through pharmacology. Adults may scoff, but youngsters get the message. Such a dependence on drugs for every imaginable malady fills the medicine cabinet with prescriptions that can be abused.
Movies and TV shows frequently make a joke out of getting drunk or puffing weed. "Stoners" in many popular shows and films are seen today as harmless comic figures, just as older folks viewed the lovable lushes of years past. Today's Snoop Dogg is yesterday's W.C. Fields; the "That ‘70s Show" crowd is Otis Campbell of Mayberry. The intoxicant may change, but the role models remain the same.
So the kids turn off their TVs and go to their iPods or CD players. Even worse. While pop music usually has taken a whimsical, casual approach to getting high, that message is more prevalent than ever. Entire songs are devoted to the joys of inebriation as pop artists push the envelope even further. The overall message: You aren't cool like us if you don't get high.
That's a hard message for parents and society to counter. Yet we don't advocate censorship of ads or music, nor can we diminish the influence of pop culture by sequestering our kids from it. So what to do?
The answer comes back the same from all experts: Positive reinforcement. If kids are hearing from musicians or celebrities that there's nothing wrong with kicking back with a drink or a joint, we must counter that argument with even more disincentive not to. That includes realistic data that shows how drug and alcohol use at a young age can only lead to problems now and later.
Parents also need to step up and do a better job of policing the prescription drugs they have in the house. They need to get rid of old medications and keep an inventory of the current ones. Locking up prescription meds probably isn't a bad idea, even in a house with a mature teenager who should know better.
We need to remind youngsters that no one uses drugs or abuses booze because they're happy; it's usually just the opposite, in fact. Finding true happiness by staying sober is the key to keeping substance abuse at arm's distance.
It's a tough task, but one that parents, educators, political and business leaders and all in our society must embrace. We don't want to see the kind of pain so many families have endured already, or more lives lost senselessly to the evils of drugs. Let's vow to do whatever it takes to get the right message across.