I am really loving this autumn. It's been so warm and in the dying moments of this year's Daylight Savings period, it was a pleasure to stand riverside whilst live Australian music heralded the launch of National Youth Week for 2011. As part of the Australian government's commitment to its young citizens, one of the stalls at the launch consolidated upon the Ecstasy. Face Facts. education campaign that has been plastered throughout the country alongside other promotional media asking us to get off the couch and bet on horse racing or to try new alcoholic beverages on the market. If you are not familiar with the 'seatless toilet' campaign, then this will give you some idea.
The stall was giving away show bags that contained a small assortment of items, including an awesome medium-sized water bottle, with the most significant one being a Drugs - The real facts booklet. At first glance, I was considerably struck by the booklet's omission of heroin, nicotine and alcohol. I'm sure it was a financial issue and because of the other campaigns that have been churned out, but given that the resource is selling itself as the 'real' facts, I was perplexed as to why one would leave these substances out. The next thing that grabbed me was the evidence of a more savvy information source with regards to language and updated terms. For example, up-to-date 'street' terms have been included and the content is more comprehensive, with the inclusion of scientific detail such as neurotransmitter names and research data excerpts. It seems that the people involved have decided that young people are more sophisticated in the 21st century and thus require a commensurate resource, which seems reasonable to me.
However, what these people seemed to have missed, yet again, is that the sophistication that is being catered for also means that in order for this type of education to work, one needs to present drugs for what they are and what the subsequent experiences of young people are. Also, many of the particularly vulnerable young people who really need such information will not receive it through this booklet - either they don't access information in this way, or will not have access to such information.
Even though there is one seemingly real dance-floor photo depicting enjoyment in the entire booklet, there is very little recognition of what young people really do witness or experience.
Under the section on MDMA, the best that is on offer is: "MDMA reduces inhibitions and causes users to become more alert, affectionate and energetic. Ecstasy starts to "come on" within 20 minutes of taking it, producing a euphoric rush that peaks after another hour or so." The remainder of the four-page section uses terms such as "blood pressure", "anxiety", "memory damage" and "horse tranquiliser". Don't get me wrong, as I agree that such terms have relevance to the subject matter, but we should have learned by now that in an overwhelming climate where drugs are demonised, the emphasis here is all wrong. We need to be focusing our energies upon the engagement of young people who are in the 'grey area', where they have experienced or seen friends experience pleasure, sometimes immense, with drugs and are consequently confused in light of the messages that they had received up until that point.
In the following sections on 'Ice', 'Marijuana (Cannabis)', 'Cocaine', 'Speed', 'GHB' and 'Depressants' a similar depiction is presented. For ice, there is "exhilaration" and "arousal" followed by a stream of information about the risks and harms. With pot, "relaxed" and "increased appetite" is offset with lines and lines of warnings. For coke, "arousal", "overly confident" and "talkative" are accompanied by four paragraphs of why the drug is dangerous. In the speed section "increased energy", "suppressed appetite" and "alertness" are presented as "normal" before the writers explain in the rest of the page why one shouldn't touch the drug, with a very prominent broken glass image in the top right-hand corner emphasising what is written. And so it continues...
The point I am attempting to make is not new. In fact, this is a point that is so worn out that it drags at the heels of the drug education field like a piece of sticky litter on the bottom of one's shoe. Not only have the EXTREME dangers of illicit drug use seeped well and truly under our collective, societal skin, but I will be surprised if anyone, not just young people, even get through this booklet. Not only will people switch off after they quickly realise that the resource is only going to reiterate what they already know, but the thing is just not engaging, sitting in a space that has a tenuous connection to the actual life of the person in whose hands it sits.
We don't need to hear didactic drivel accompanied by sleek graphically-designed imagery. We need to hear from the young guy who tried ecstasy for the first time after swearing adamantly that he would never touch drugs, when he fell for a young woman whose best friend is a part-time dealer. We need to hear about the cousin of a friend who started seeing this guy who was in with all these cashed-up music promoters who take 'G' every weekend and have an "absolute ball". We need to read about the young group of friends who recently found out that the guy from Depeche Mode smoked a heap of pot when they recorded a multi-million selling album and then decide to try it for the first time. And we might need to ask the university student who tried cocaine after she was offered it at a party by people who shared her passion for Sigmund Freud, to disclose the connection between her decision to experiment and her studies on the Austrian neurologist.
Because the people who will read this booklet from cover to cover, apart from the annoying bloggers of the world, are concerned parents or journalists who will then treat people who use illicit drugs with even more disgust as they perceive a type of person who is so obtuse that he/she will use or continue to use a drug that has very little benefit and a seemingly endless list of drawbacks. This is without exploring the fact that the booklet provides no meaningful information about what can be done if drugs end up being used and something goes wrong.
It's funny, because one of the bands who played at the launch released the following lyrics with their last record:
"And we don't wanna get fucked up, oh no
We just wanna get high!"
As a young person, I might actually learn more from those two lines than from the entire National Drugs Campaign booklet. Maybe rock 'n' roll 'aint noise pollution after all?
More info HERE.
The stall was giving away show bags that contained a small assortment of items, including an awesome medium-sized water bottle, with the most significant one being a Drugs - The real facts booklet. At first glance, I was considerably struck by the booklet's omission of heroin, nicotine and alcohol. I'm sure it was a financial issue and because of the other campaigns that have been churned out, but given that the resource is selling itself as the 'real' facts, I was perplexed as to why one would leave these substances out. The next thing that grabbed me was the evidence of a more savvy information source with regards to language and updated terms. For example, up-to-date 'street' terms have been included and the content is more comprehensive, with the inclusion of scientific detail such as neurotransmitter names and research data excerpts. It seems that the people involved have decided that young people are more sophisticated in the 21st century and thus require a commensurate resource, which seems reasonable to me.
However, what these people seemed to have missed, yet again, is that the sophistication that is being catered for also means that in order for this type of education to work, one needs to present drugs for what they are and what the subsequent experiences of young people are. Also, many of the particularly vulnerable young people who really need such information will not receive it through this booklet - either they don't access information in this way, or will not have access to such information.
Even though there is one seemingly real dance-floor photo depicting enjoyment in the entire booklet, there is very little recognition of what young people really do witness or experience.
Under the section on MDMA, the best that is on offer is: "MDMA reduces inhibitions and causes users to become more alert, affectionate and energetic. Ecstasy starts to "come on" within 20 minutes of taking it, producing a euphoric rush that peaks after another hour or so." The remainder of the four-page section uses terms such as "blood pressure", "anxiety", "memory damage" and "horse tranquiliser". Don't get me wrong, as I agree that such terms have relevance to the subject matter, but we should have learned by now that in an overwhelming climate where drugs are demonised, the emphasis here is all wrong. We need to be focusing our energies upon the engagement of young people who are in the 'grey area', where they have experienced or seen friends experience pleasure, sometimes immense, with drugs and are consequently confused in light of the messages that they had received up until that point.
In the following sections on 'Ice', 'Marijuana (Cannabis)', 'Cocaine', 'Speed', 'GHB' and 'Depressants' a similar depiction is presented. For ice, there is "exhilaration" and "arousal" followed by a stream of information about the risks and harms. With pot, "relaxed" and "increased appetite" is offset with lines and lines of warnings. For coke, "arousal", "overly confident" and "talkative" are accompanied by four paragraphs of why the drug is dangerous. In the speed section "increased energy", "suppressed appetite" and "alertness" are presented as "normal" before the writers explain in the rest of the page why one shouldn't touch the drug, with a very prominent broken glass image in the top right-hand corner emphasising what is written. And so it continues...
The point I am attempting to make is not new. In fact, this is a point that is so worn out that it drags at the heels of the drug education field like a piece of sticky litter on the bottom of one's shoe. Not only have the EXTREME dangers of illicit drug use seeped well and truly under our collective, societal skin, but I will be surprised if anyone, not just young people, even get through this booklet. Not only will people switch off after they quickly realise that the resource is only going to reiterate what they already know, but the thing is just not engaging, sitting in a space that has a tenuous connection to the actual life of the person in whose hands it sits.
We don't need to hear didactic drivel accompanied by sleek graphically-designed imagery. We need to hear from the young guy who tried ecstasy for the first time after swearing adamantly that he would never touch drugs, when he fell for a young woman whose best friend is a part-time dealer. We need to hear about the cousin of a friend who started seeing this guy who was in with all these cashed-up music promoters who take 'G' every weekend and have an "absolute ball". We need to read about the young group of friends who recently found out that the guy from Depeche Mode smoked a heap of pot when they recorded a multi-million selling album and then decide to try it for the first time. And we might need to ask the university student who tried cocaine after she was offered it at a party by people who shared her passion for Sigmund Freud, to disclose the connection between her decision to experiment and her studies on the Austrian neurologist.
Because the people who will read this booklet from cover to cover, apart from the annoying bloggers of the world, are concerned parents or journalists who will then treat people who use illicit drugs with even more disgust as they perceive a type of person who is so obtuse that he/she will use or continue to use a drug that has very little benefit and a seemingly endless list of drawbacks. This is without exploring the fact that the booklet provides no meaningful information about what can be done if drugs end up being used and something goes wrong.
It's funny, because one of the bands who played at the launch released the following lyrics with their last record:
"And we don't wanna get fucked up, oh no
We just wanna get high!"
As a young person, I might actually learn more from those two lines than from the entire National Drugs Campaign booklet. Maybe rock 'n' roll 'aint noise pollution after all?
More info HERE.
I can't agree with you more. I saw one of these 'Ecstasy. Face facts' ads yesterday while waiting for a train. I thought about a series of 'Face facts' spoofs, mainly including products like t-shirts made in China (face the facts of child labour and sweat shops), bacon (face the facts of factory-farmed pigs), and cars (face the facts of climate change and peak oil).
ReplyDeleteIn the end, everything has risks. It's all about how you manage them, isn't it?!