Children, Alcohol and Drugs
by Anders K. Hägglund
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Children, Alcohol and Drugs
by Anders K. Hägglund |
 Colombia © Pierre Virot / WHO
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At two o'clock in the morning, the night patrol from the church stopped in the fashionable area of Stockholm. At a street corner, they recognised a well-known pimp talking to a young girl. She was both drunk at too young to be there. The pimp tried to get her into his car. The street pastor went up to them and presented himself and his team. The girl started to sob and asked them to take her home: "I'm drunk and afraid". The pimp became angry but left the scene. As the church night patrol drove her home, the 16-year-old girl started to tell her story. Her parents had not allowed her to go to the downtown disco that night. But she went with her boy friend. At midnight, she had a fight with her boyfriend, left the disco both upset and drunk and started to walk the streets back home. Suddenly she was accosted by a strange man and it was then that the street pastor arrived. She realised how dangerous this situation could have been. When the church night patrol arrived and asked if they could come in and talk to her parents, she said: "Please don't, my father is the local priest". According to the research and reports I have read, children up to the age of at least 18 should not consume alcohol or other drugs. Unfortunately, this is very often not the case. In February 2001, a World Health Organisation (WHO) reports on alcohol consumption on global level:
Alcohol's contribution to the global burden of disease is significant and growing in some regions, to the point that in parts of central and eastern Europe, alcohol use is contributing to an unprecedented decline in male life expectancy. The existing evidence is sufficient to indicate that alcohol is a significant threat to world health." Alcohol and drugs together constitute one of the world's greatest economic market, whether legal or illegal. It is a kind of modern version of the trade triangle that, 300 years ago, exchanged slaves, sugar, cotton and tobacco in a triangle between Africa, America and Europe. Some years ago at the San Diego ICAA Conference I asked an alcohol producer what the industry's goal was?" His answer was "To earn as much money as possible". Public health issues, he said, were not the industry's responsibility. It just observed the laws of the country where their products were sold. Adequate legislation on alcohol is lacking in many countries. And very often women and children become the innocent victims of male grown-up dependency, and hunger for economic profit. The effect of the alcoholic soft drinks - "alco-pops" - sold and marketed in the United Kingdom, especially on teenagers, is a typical example. Who cares for young addicts who will maybe never become taxpayers in society? Who cares for the child soldiers in southern Africa who are fed on drugs? Some economic theories claim that marginalised people are themselves to blame for their poverty or addiction and that it is a waste of taxes to use it to help addicts. I believe this is an entirely misguided view. It is time for the people who call themselves leaders to work towards a more equal society where everyone has access to health, education and a descent standard of living. But the reality is, as a minister of social affairs from a European country said at the WHO/EU ministerial conference on Young People and Alcohol in Stockholm in February 2001; "I feel more or less powerless in my country to improve public health issues because the minister of finance and the market forces have [all] the power." It is time for churches to talk about structural sin, which causes more pain among children in our world than any personal sin has ever done. The alcohol and drugs trade is a major component in worldwide suffering today. Many juvenile delinquents and young addicts are not only blamed for the ills of the global village but also mistreated and neglected. Very often, it is the survival instinct and the effects of their substance abuse that push addicted people to violate their own morals and values. Addiction often develops among young people because they lack jobs, money, economic security, emotional and social support. Mainstream society insists that young addicts choose to become addicted, but do they really? In my view, children and young people's alcohol and drug abuse today is the responsibility of adults who love money and profit more than real justice. Children do as adults do, not as they say! The "golden rule" today is that the person who owns the gold sets the rules. The golden rule Jesus talked about seems to be forgotten:
Matthew 7:12 Jesus also said:
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father… for the Son of man is come to save that which was lost". (KJV) Matthew 18:10-11 I wonder how Jesus would react to this protest from a Zambian:
The world is forgetting an axiom found in most religions: to be rich is not to have a lot of money or material things. To be rich is to have a family, trustworthy friends, a relationship to God, to other people, to the environment and myself. But maybe society cannot be changed from the top down. Maybe it is from the middle, bottom and marginalised sectors of society that the world will be changed. That was certainly so during the first three centuries of the Christian Church. Jesus choose His disciples from the middle and marginalised sectors of His society. Jesus trusted twelve dubious boys. He acted as a mentor for them, master and disciple side by side. With the power of Jesus' resurrection and of the Holy Spirit of the Trinity, they turned the Roman Empire upside down. When we talk about children, alcohol and drugs, we often depend on out-dated information and myths. The real experts in this field are our own children who know the present trends. Invite young people from the streets of your societies to tell their stories and let them speak without interrupting them. Remember that God trusted a teenage girl named Maria to carry the Word that created cosmos. Very often the best solutions come from people hurt by unjust systems. many marginalised youth have good ideas on how to solve the problems, but very few people listen to them. Instead, frustration and bitterness are growing, with riots, suicide attempts or addiction as some of the consequences. Who would Jesus and His disciples relate to if he came to your hometown today?
Would they relate to:
Most churches believe that Christ comes to us in the Eucharist. But He has also promised to meet us when we relate to the least of our brethren (Matt. 25:40). This is also the experience of some of the saints, like St Bishoy, St Martin and St Christopher. Father Ion Bria writes in his book The Liturgy after the Liturgy:
Anders K. Hägglund is coordinator of deacons, Sundbyberg, Church of Sweden.
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