STB-94-08
CHILDREN AND DRUGS:
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM AND
THE SOLUTION
Lawrence J. Chisholm, Ex:. Du.
Natlonal Masonic Foundatlon for Chlldren
There are four elements to the solution of the
problem of drug and alcohol abuse among our
children: Awareness, Treatment, Enforcement,
and Prevention.
The reason we as a country have experienced
such great frustration in dealing with the problem, and have made such minuscule progress, is
because the right balance among these four elements, and the way in which they must work
together, is almost universally misunderstood.
This misunderstanding has cost us billions, with
little to show for it.
Awareness programs, including everything
from wall posters to TV specials, are an
absolutely necessary element to the solution.
But there is a belief among some in our society
that pouring enough information on the problem will put out the fire, that we can somehow
talk this problem to death. This will not happen!
There is also considerable evidence that pursuing information programs--in isolation--can
produce the opposite result from what is intended! Let me take space here for just one among
many examples: One of the most popular anti-drug programs of the eighties (and still today
among those who have not yet gotten the word)
was to put recovered addicts from the
Hollywood and sports worlds in front of classrooms of kids to tell their stories. The intent was
obvious, the results were not. While you and I,
as adults, hear the miracle of recovery in those
stories, a federal Department of Education study
demonstrated more than ten years ago that children are different from you and me. Kids hear
"success" and "drugs" as synonymous in these
stories; they don't separate the message!
Further, those who think we are going to
scare kids out of taking drugs are blinding themselves to the obvious: children, and particularly
at-risk children, love horror stories and horror
movies. This has been known for a long time--
think of the themes in our oldest fairy tales.
There also is the famous example of the antidrug commercial with the frying egg ("this is
your brain on drugs"). A study more than a year
ago showed that the youth population targeted
by that ad, at-risk children, has an opposite reaction to what is hoped for, sometimes with tragic
results. Kids are different from adults, and our
solutions must be tailored to that difference if
we're going to stop the addictive cycle in this
country.
There are other such examples that all lead to
one conclusion: Information programs alone
actually can lead to harmful results if the total
dynamic of the solution is not understood.
Information must be combined with specific
actions if the right results are to take place.
Treatment programs also are an absolutely
necessary element to the solution for any society
that seeks to call itself humane. If someone who
has fallen into the pit of addiction can find the
will to honestly ask tor help, a helping hand
should be there. But treatment professionals
themselves admit that the resources aren't sufficient, and probably never will be, for treatment
alone to catch up to a problem of this scope. Or
as succinctly put by a prevention professional
recently, "You don't win a war by treating the
wounded."
Enforcement programs can keep the dam
from bursting and buy time for we, the people,
to solve this agonizing social problem. But that
isn't the way it's happening. Many among our
leadership, including specifically our political
leadership, insist on trying to solve social problems with enforcement programs. Enforcement,
by definition, is not designed or intended to,
alone, solve social problems. Enforcement officials can be, and have been, very articulate in
trying to point this out.
The idea that we can kill all the bad guys and
leave the good guys standing seems to have a
flaw in it.
There also seems to be plentiful evidence that
spending billions to try to stop the flow of an
endless array of addictive substances is a fool's
game. One among too many examples:
Interdiction programs that aimed to destroy
cocaine at its source, the coca fields, have been
popular throughout recent years. In the early
90's military personnel spent hundreds of millions of dollars in one operation to destroy the
Colombian coca crop. They succeeded in
destroying an estimated 2 percent of that year's
crop. Insects destroy 20 percent.
Prevention, working with children to stop the
addictive cycle before it can get started, is the
only one of the four elements that holds hope
for a long-term, effective solution to the problem of addiction in our country. It is also possibly the most misunderstood of the four elements. For example, as indicated earlier, there
is a great deal of confusion among many very
well-intended people that Awareness programs
and Prevention programs are synonymous.
They are not.
Giving information does not mean that prevention is taking place. This misunderstanding
has led to a great deal of wasted time, money,
and eftort. And to frustration.
One of the supreme ironies about drug addiction is that our citizens demcmd a quick-fx to a
problem that is itself a search for a quick-fix to
problems.
We seldom discuss or examine our role
because if we did we would begin to see that we
have met the enemy and it is us. Politicians, at
least those who have made an art of taxing the
productive members of our society in order to
buy votes from the least productive, gravitate
easily toward the demagoguery of promising to
devote more and more of our money to killing
the bad guys, and this continues in spite of failure after failure. It doesn't work because it
directs huge sums of money toward symptoms
and leaves causes untouched. (And "causes" go
much, much deeper than jobs, or homelessness,
or any of the other afflictions that are put forth
to pry money from the public treasury.)
Why are too many of our children putting this
stuff in their bodies? They do it because they are
in pain and they become desperate to change the
way they feel. And we can say "just say no"
until we are out of breath, but when a friend of
their's says "try this" and they try it and the pain
immediately goes away, all the warnings about
ruining their body and ruining their life are not
as powerful as that pain disappearing. Almost
all their role models, adults and peers, parents
and personal friends, TV and movie stars,
exemplify by their behavior a quick-fix society
(think of aspirin ads, for example). The power
of example will defeat rhetoric every time;
Freemasonry teaches us that.
This problem did not develop overnight, or in
the 1980s, or the '70s or '60s, or even this century. It is not new. What is new is the way the
barrier formerly protecting our children our
future--has dropped, and the way the problem
has reached into ever more segments of our
daily life. What is new is that the problem is
demanding to be solved, or it will tear us apart.
The solution can thus be seen to be longterm--helping the youngest among us. And the
solution to this problem is not morc jobs, or
more money, or more houses, but goes to the
very heart, the foundation, of any society--in
recognizing that the role we have accepted for
millennia, the role of developing the brainpower of our youth, is no longer by itself enough.
We can no longer regard principles and ethics
and emotional values as theory or as simply old
ideas moldering in dusty tomes.
We must look with fresh eyes at how and
what we teach our children.
Of the four elements to the solution, only one,
prevention, works to turn the problem around.
We repeat: Entorcement controls the problem
while we solve the problem; enforcement is not
designed to solve social problems--or it would
no longer be, by definition, enforcement. Treatment must be available in a humane society, but
we can't win the war on drugs by treating the
wounded. Information programs are necessary
to keep us informed, but expecting it to do more
than that can lead to exactly opposite results
from what we want.
"Masonic Model" Student Assistance Training is the best prevention program available. It
is not a quick-fix. What recommends it most
strongly is that, unlike the foregoing approaches, it works! It ~systematically puts caring
adults together with children in pain. No one
attending the training sessions has failed to
come away without the understanding that they
have seen the principles of the solution in
action !
The solution exists. It is not a quick fix. It is
long term. It only needs increased support to
begin turning this problem around--and the
benefits of pursuing this course go far beyond
the subject of drugs and alcohol.
Our next Short Talk will discuss Freemasonry's role in helping our children fight this
problem.
6 7
The following list of Short Talk Bulletins also
deal with the subject of Children and Drugs.
5-87 Masons Care About Children
1-89 Drug and Alcohol Abuse:
A Masonic Response
5-92 Drug and Alcohol Abuse Problem:
Lodges Can Help
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