Iceland’s Approach To Teen Substance Abuse Is Something America Needs Now

‘As the U.S. largely ignores an epidemic opioid crisis fueled by the pharmaceutical industry and a rush of available heroin resulting from the war on drugs, Iceland is receiving international acclaim for its approaches in helping to keep teens off drugs.
Primarily addressing the issue of underage drinking and binge-drinking, a need for a new plan to confront teen substance abuse in Iceland has achieved extraordinary results, turning around the dangerous trend. Employing both a ‘radical and evidence-based’ approach, community leaders first looked at stress as a causal factor in substance abuse, then looked at why people become addicts, then offered practical solutions which have thus far worked.
Today, Iceland tops the European table for the cleanest-living teens. The percentage of 15- and 16-year-olds who had been drunk in the previous month plummeted from 42 per cent in 1998 to 5 per cent in 2016. The percentage who have ever used cannabis is down from 17 per cent to 7 per cent. Those smoking cigarettes every day fell from 23 per cent to just 3 per cent.’
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