It's a middle-school rite of passage. One day, you're sitting in class learning about Alexander the Great and wondering how to grab the optimum real estate in the lunchroom. The next, you're getting the drug and alcohol awareness lesson. For my 12-year-old, that day just arrived. "We saw a movie in school today," she drawled over dinner recently, eyes already engaged in full eye roll. "It was called 'Pot, the Party Crasher.'" Then she made a familiar sputtering sound of contempt.
We live in a world that is changing at a breakneck pace. Yet drug awareness is still stuck somewhere around the "Saved by the Bell" era. And it was lame back then too.
Though "Pot, the Party Crasher" sounds like a lesser-known B-side by the Wiggles, it is in fact an educational film developed by Project Alert, a substance abuse prevention curriculum that also incorporates classroom activities and exercises. It was developed by the think tank RAND Corp. and boasts "measurable results" in reducing drug, tobacco and alcohol use that are "grounded in solid science."
Science isn't exactly art, though. Maybe that's why the acting and dramatic resonance of "Pot, the Party Crasher" flat-lines at roughly the level of a local mobile home ad, and the score seems straight out of a 1979 video game. Did you know that teenage boys, crazed on their jazz cigarettes, still say things like "Chillax! Take a hit!" and "Quit being a buzzkill"? They do! Spoiler alert: The evening busts up when our heroine declares, "Nobody's ordering any cheese bread because this party is over!" Take that, party-crashing pot.
It's been a mighty long time since my own adolescence, right at the height of D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign. Yet I've got to tell you, of all the reasons I ever turned down anything, wondering, "What would Nancy Reagan do?' was never one of them. On the contrary, "Just say no" was a phrase most often bandied about jokingly, usually heralding the appearance of someone's bong. But I also know that one little word is almost all it's ever taken to decline an offer.
What's surprising is how little drug awareness seems to have changed since we parents were rocking the acid wash. Why is D.A.R.E., with its ongoing efforts and successes, still as cheesy as its current campaign, "Keepin' it REAL"? Sure, if by REAL, you mean something Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch might say. And if you want to get really absurd, behold the intense spots from the Scientology-front "Foundation for a Drug-Free World" or the "horrors" that the conservative Family Life International's "Hugs Not Drugs" campaign is still cranking out.
And the success rate of these initiatives is unclear. Two months ago, a University of Michigan study found that teen alcohol use hit an all-time low in 2011, but that marijuana use was on the rise.
The reality of modern parenting is that most parents themselves have experimented with drugs and alcohol -- and may continue to. Frankly, as a nonsmoking social drinker who asks her doctor how to dispose of the Percocets she didn't finish, I've never been one who particularly needed help resisting too many substances. But I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about the recreational habits of others. And I can certainly distinguish between the person running a meth lab in his basement and the cancer patient who uses some party-crashing pot for pain and nausea relief. That's why I suspect I'm not the only parent who's rolling her eyes as much as her kids at the profound unsubtlety of substance abuse campaigns, or the hard lines organizations like the Partnership at Drugfree.org often take on issues like medical marijuana.
Make no mistake: I'm glad my child and her peers are having conversations about drinking, drugs and smoking. My firstborn, on the cusp of adolescence, is entering a world fraught with vices and potential hazards, and she's doing it with a family history of substance abuse on both sides. I want her equipped to deal with decisions and their consequences. I'm glad that their eminently artsy school, where the images of John Coltrane, Joey Ramone and John Lennon – men not exactly known to for their strict abstinence policies -- adorn the walls, is preparing kids for how to deal with the choices that will be offered to them. But how we can teach kids reason and responsibility if the tools we're using are so outdated and corny?
There's no easy way to talk to kids about drugs and alcohol. But there's got to be a better way. And in all the conversation about how to teach them, I wonder how much anyone is listening to the kids themselves. I wonder where all the humor and weirdness and spirit of authentic 12-year-olds is. Because it's there, waiting to be tapped. I love that when my daughter's teacher suggested everyone in the class pledge simply to not drink alcohol just for today, one of my daughter's friends raised her hand and cracked, "Come on. I'm Italian." Better still, I love that when one of her classmates was recently offered pot in the park near the school, the kid disdainfully directed the guy to "Go back to your mother's basement." It was simple, direct and effective. And, I'd wager, delivered with a hell of an eye roll.
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