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attitudes and their own behavior in
different kinds of situations where
they might come into contact with a
range of different drugs. So our pro–
gram is informal in its approach.
Secondly this program sees its pri–
mary focus as the teaching of what
could be called social skills. The
premise upon which we base this
material is that when young people
are in situations where they have to
make decisions either to use a drug
or not use a drug, quite often they
don't have the social skills, or com–
petence, to make a free choice.
What we are saying is that edu–
cation shou ld provide them with
the skills whereby they can actually
exercise a proper degree of autono–
my or a degree of choice.
For example•. one of the units of
this program deals with the first
offer of cannabis. What happens to
a lad who actually comes over to a
group and, as they are talking, finds
someone offers him a joint, saying,
"Why don't you try sorne?"
lt
depicts a situation where a person
is subjected to the peer pressure of
wanting to be part of the group.
l f he refuses what are they going
to think of him? This puts a certain
amount of social pressure on him.
He has got to make a decision. He
doesn't have time to make this in
six months. He makes it then and
t here, within say, five seconds.
That is what I mean by social
skills- the degree of social compe–
tence that we use all the time in our
normal social interactions.
So what we are doing is to
increase those skills,
so that this
person doesn't just take t he joint,
but actually has developed the
social competence whereby he can
really exercise his own intelligent
choice. That's the primary focus of
the material
Free to Choose.
Its
primary focus is building social
competence. There are facts in the
material but the facts are subordi–
nate to its overall aim. That's why
it is
an
approach to drug education,
because there are other ways it
could be approached.
What age groups are addictive
drugs of all types affecting?
Part of t he popular mythology of
drug use and misuse in this country
has been that it is a young person's
May
1982
problem. We have almost doubled
our alcohol consumption in the last
10
years in this country.
What we tend to do is to say that
young people are drinking more.
Well, young people are drinking
more. But there is
no evidence
that
they are drinking more in proportion
to what everyone else is drinking.
That is quite an important point
because adults tend to focus on
young people and it legitimizes in
their minds what they as adults are
"Drug use and misuse in
this country
...
is not justa
young person's problem.
It
is the
problem of the whole
society."
doing.
But 1t 1s not just a young per–
son's problem. 1t is the problem of
the whole society. Take addictive
drugs like tranquilizers and seda–
tives. That is
not
fundamentally a
problem of young people. I t is a
fundamental problem of middle–
aged people going· through various
kinds of anxiety crises with age,
and turning to drugs because they
are found to be a source of solace.
So middle-aged people become
addicted to them quite easily.
Of course, one of the reasons why
there has been so much focus on
young people is that if a young per-
son becomes addicted early in life,
that has certain implications for his
future. Drugs,like alcohol, have con–
siderable psychoactive potentia!. If a
person is going through post-puber–
ty emotional deve-lopment, the effect
of the drug might be to retard devel–
opment as an adult.
1
work on the drug council in
Manchester. 1 have a number of
people with whom
l
counsel.
1
find
situations where a person, say at
25, has still got to go through post–
puberty emotional development
because it got blocked by an unfor–
tunate occurrence with drugs in
late teens.
The trouble is that at 25, sorne
have got a 25-year-old head, but a
17-year-old emotional develop–
ment. With young men and women
you have much greater potential for
all kinds of accidents.
Quite rightly in sorne respects, we
do focus on the young. But remem–
ber, blaming the problem on young
people can very easily mask some–
thing which is widespread and
affects the whole range of age
groups.
To what extent does drug depen·
dency lead to crime?
Drunkenness can lead to a whole
range of criminal behavior. lt might
be common assaul t, or it could be
much more serious t han that.
But the mere fact that many
drugs li ke heroin are illegal (and I
am not advocating at all that they
should be made legal) leads to
criminal behavior per se. Illegality
naturally leads to a black market.
The fact ·that people who are
addicted to these drugs need to get
more drugs leads to a whole range
of criminal offshoot behavior in
order to raise the money.
However, having said t hat, I
would also say that drug-induced
criminal behavior is over-sensation–
al ized in relation to this country.
We watch far too many American
detective movies. The number of
American detective programs with
drug addiction as tbeir focus is
absolutely astonish ing! People in
this country get a distorted view of
what drug addiction is and the kind
of life that goes with it. That's
unfortunate i n many r espects
because it again masks t he real drug
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