Mass class use of addictive substances are nothing new

Yesterday the Forth Neighbourhood Partnership hosted a 'health summit' to agree priorities for local action on health issues for the next few years. A very acceptable turnout, maybe 50 people and several new faces, and general agreement, I think, on the key issues namely, mental health and stress, access to and information about services, and many, many anxieties about young people and alcohol.

Several people there shared our Justice Minister's view that access to alcohol should be made more difficult - it is an intuitive view that on the face of it, makes perfect sense but I don't think 'prohibition lite' will work.

Making the shopkeeper or publican the gatekeeper for young people, or pushing the price too high will just create another market for 'dealers'. Illegal drugs are easy to secure despite all the energy and money that are thrown at preventing it: what makes anybody think it won't be the same for booze?

The answer lies in a whole number of strategies: not associating alcohol with 'cool', encouraging self esteem, providing other options for young people to get involved in, punishing parents or other adults who buy and supply the stuff for those under-age, holding your breath and keeping your nerve to understand that for the majority learning to use alcohol sensibly is a process of maturity and... most of all, to understand that when people, young or old, are living in what they consider a hopeless situation, they are easy prey to addictive substances that numb the edge of reality - the gin parlours of Victorian Britain, the opium dens of 19th century China, North America and France. Mass class use of addictive substances are nothing new.

What we have failed to acknowledge is that for a significant minority in 3rd millenia Scotland, the situation feels as hopeless as it ever did. Add to that a general disenchantment with religion which makes the possibility of a new temperance movement unlikely: the same disenchantment with politics which means nobody believes a word that politicians have to say: and a cult of celebrity where role models are seldom 'clean or sober' then it is very clear our young folk in deprived neighbourhoods are up against it...it takes a very special kind of young person to say no... but they are out there and they must be where we start.