Smart drugs, cannabis and heroin: young Europeans in search of meaning (they haven’t found)?

One in four Europeans has taken drugs at least once in the course of his life. The national anti-mafia prosecutor Franco Roberti announced the alarming figures a few days ago during the presentation of the annual report of the DNA (National Anti-Mafia Directorate) at the Senate, which takes stock of the fight against drug trafficking. Specialists are familiar with these figures, which – they point out – are so high because they refer also to occasional use of cannabis at least once in a lifetime. A brief survey among Catholic organizations working in the field of drug-addiction highlighted the need to work at a preventive level on young people, giving sense and meaning to lives emptied by consumerist needs and counter-values induced by society.

“Engaging young people in beautiful, authentic life.” “The most alarming aspect is not in the numbers but in the cultural and educational aspects, which show that many people are wasting their lives in this way”, pointed out Fr Armando Zappolini, president of Coordinamento nazionale comunità di accoglienza (Cnca) (national coordination of host communities). “Not everyone takes heavy drugs – he cautioned – but the fact that so many people in Europe have been exposed to psychoactive substances means there is a lack of connection with reality. The same happens with addictions to alcohol and gambling. ” According to Fr Zappolini, this issue “is of great concern and it raises questions on prevailing social models and target values.” “We live in a Europe that focuses on performance and on the economy – he pointed out – but those who make use of narcotic substances to enhance performance are criminalized. Let us remember that young people breathe the dominant culture.” “This represents a fruitful market for organized crime – underlined the CNCA president -. For example, cocaine is fully integrated in the kind of life that is being proposed. The commercial success of organized crime is the result of the connection between its devastating substances and a given picture of life. This is the cause and the primary danger, which all other dangers stem from.” According to CNCA “there is the need for a veritable cultural and educational crusade, fighting against those who speculate and profit. We must not engage in a war on drug addicts but combat the mafias that profit from them. It is necessary to invest in young people in order to bring them to love true life.” Unfortunately, he noted, “youth organizations are poorly structured and short-lived”, and even in the Church “too much time has been dedicated to devotional faith, which has brought many young people to go out of Catholic environments: we must start to ask ourselves how to engage youths in the beauty of authentic life.”

Beware of a “boomerang effect.” “It’s wrong and deleterious to say that 25% of young Europeans make use of drugs. These are largely overestimated figures: they are confusing and detrimental, and they entail a boomerang effect”, said Leopoldo Grosso, vice-President of Gruppo Abele: “In this way – he said – the public perception of the phenomenon creates the phenomenon itself, because whoever doesn’t make use of drugs could feel at odds.” This figure – he explained – comes as a result of the response to the first question of the European questionnaire on the use of drugs at least once in a lifetime. “This does not mean being a drug addict.” In fact, the most reliable data are the answers to the second and third questions, namely: “Have you taken drugs in the last year or month?”, which provides information on frequent drug consumption. On the whole, he pointed out, “the trend of drug consumption in Europe is slightly increasing and is evolving gradually, marked by the return of heroin use, the stabilization of cocaine and a slight increase in the use of cannabis.” Of course there are differences between European countries: Eastern European countries, which have suffered the opium route from Russia with “a sharp increase in AIDS and hepatitis infected citizens”, are experiencing the worst situation. Spain, England and Italy are the most exposed to cocaine. The spread of methamphetamine varies across countries, because “the market for new drugs is not all in the hands of drug traffickers – he pointed out -. A consistent amount of drugs are home-made, and laboratories are spread throughout Europe, especially in Central Europe.” Experts confide in the upcoming UN special session on drugs (being held two years in advance compared to the scheduled date, upon request of Latin-American countries experiencing a tragic situation). “The summit will evaluate the effectiveness of the fight against drugs in the past thirty years to find new solutions. We hope it will contribute to a breakthrough,” he said.

“The future of our young people is at stake.” The return of smoked and sniffed heroin and of heroin mixed with cannabis (more profitable for the market); the use of smart drugs ordered over the internet, whose hazards are unknown; a general increase in addictions, including alcohol and gambling, exasperated by the crisis and by the “desperate loneliness of young people in front of computer screens and mobile phones.” This is the situation in Italy described by Roberto Mineo, president of the Ceis don Mario Picchi in Rome (Fr Mario Picchi solidarity home), comparable to that in many European capitals. “The future of our youths is at stake”, he said. “The figures are high because the strategies adopted to date aim at decreasing the damage, creating a twofold addiction: to drugs and methadone. There is no intention of solving the problem once and for all.” If young people feel ignored, and that nobody helps them, he pointed out, “they will fall victims of petty crime networks that make them earn easy money as drug dealers.”