1. Iceland
Knows How To Stop
Teen SubstanceTeen Substance
Abuse
https://digg.com/2017/teen-substance-abuse-mosaic
2. Percentage of 15- and 16-year-olds who
30
35
40
45
ICELAND
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
...drank in previous
month
...ever used cannabis ...smoke daily
1998
2016
3. STUDY
• Harvey Milkman, an American psychology
professor at Reykjavik University and researcher
at US National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Why do people start using drugs?
Availability, risk-takers, alienation, depressionAvailability, risk-takers, alienation, depression
• Why do they continue?
• When do they reach a threshold to abuse?
• When do they stop?
• When do they relapse?
4. Threshold for Abuse
• Even before a user begins to take drugs, it is
possible to identify those on the danger
threshold via their style of coping.
High or Low?
Heroin or Amphetamines?
• People choose according to how they liked to
deal with stress.
• Heroin users want to numb themselves
• Amphetamine users want to actively confront
stress.
Heroin or Amphetamines?
5. Chemical Connection
• Addiction is about changes in brain chemistry.
• Rewards system: increase in dopamine levels
leads to increased sensations of pleasure.
• Behavioural Addiction—behaviour that
induces increased dopamine production.induces increased dopamine production.
Hence, people can get addicted to
drink, cars, money, sex, drugs food, etc
• Drug education failed because no alternatives
were provided to achieve the same effects.
• Solution: Natural highs
6. Strongly-protective Factors
• Participation in organized activities –
especially sport – three or four times a week
• Ttotal time spent with parents during the
weekweek
• Feeling cared about at school
• Not being outdoors in the late evenings
