Trippy Times: Taiwan Teens Embrace Drug Culture

From 2006 to 2007, the United Nations allocated US$283 million for youth drug education programs around the world, as part of their efforts to reduce drug abuse and drug-related crime.

Since the time of the Opium Wars of the 19th century through the high-profile arrests of celebrities, drug abuse has shown itself an implacable social ill. Even more alarming is that it is no longer just an adult vice, as teenagers gradually are becoming its primary victims.

Is teenage drug abuse becoming more serious? Why do minors turn to drugs in the first place? And what measures can be taken to prevent this from occurring?

When the Tomb-Sweeping Festival holiday ended this April, many were surprised at the wholesomeness of the "Spring Scream" and "Spring Wave"-two annual music festivals held in Kenting noted for prevalent drug use. Perhaps it was the rigorous law and order campaigns and police crackdowns of the past few years finally yielding good results, but regardless of the reasons, with the exception of three drug-related arrests at house parties in Hengchun and Manchou Townships, this year's Spring Scream evoked little of the boozy, drug-soaked atmosphere of years past.

In March, police in the Yunlin, Kaohsiung, and Pingtung regions seized 500 kilograms of ketamine, or NT$150 million worth of the stuff. The shipments were intended for Kenting, and the drug had been flavored with Kukeng coffee beans so as to make it more palatable to youthful partygoers.

Ecstasy and ketamine, which are classified as category two and three drugs respectively (see Table, p. 49), in recent years have become the sine qua non of youth house parties and large-scale concert venues, to the great distress of many. Indeed, families, schools, and society as a whole are confounded by this recent crop of youngsters and their penchant for raving and party drugs.

For some young people the throb of the dance floor is the perfect release for their frustrations and pent-up energy, but for others it is a path that will lead them astray.

A taste of ecstasy

"Advice doesn't help lovers! An intellectual doesn't know what the drunk is feeling." In "Each Note," Middle Eastern poet and mystic Rumi likens those in love to drunkards. Of course drug use and love are not the same thing, but one thing is certain: just as feelings of love cannot be understood by those with no first-hand knowledge, those who have never taken drugs cannot comprehend the sensations that drug users experience.

"Pure bliss!" is how author Hsiao-chi (not his real name) describes his encounters with Ecstasy. He elaborates: "It's a sweeping, completely penetrating feeling of happiness," though the drug does not invariably induce complete euphoria. "I would say that it's really great three out of every ten times." He goes on to comment on how that feeling makes it easy to become psychologically dependent. He tried it many times at the encouragement of friends, but noticed that the high was succeeded by feelings of emptiness and depression.

In 2005, e-Flower, an autobiographical account of a gay couple's experiences with nightclub culture and Ecstasy over a span of five years, hit the bookshelves. The authors, "Big D" and "Little D," both worked in the media, and their confessional is the first to deal candidly with the topic of drug use.

I became acutely conscious of all the inner workings of my body, the beating of my heart and the movements of every muscle and tendon; I suddenly became aware of deep secrets and feelings cached away in my heart-I never knew I had so many secrets before! I became possessed with a visceral self-understanding and honesty.

Ecstasy makes you see things, little detached figments of the imagination that grow and transform in your mind, forming strange, fantastical stories. These little fragments bounce about with no connection to one another; it's impossible to know what it all means. I was never afraid of these visions, because I knew they were harmless and immaterial, just part of the trip.

When the trip ended, depression came. There wasn't anything I could do to feel better. I would just lie in bed, trapped in an abyss of misery, wandering alone at the margins of my soul. I felt completely alone, forsaken in a world apart from others.

No matter how high a person may feel on a drug trip, the euphoria is buried afterwards in an avalanche of melancholy that catches people off guard. In e-Flower, the authors describe how someone coming down from a trip burst into tears at the sight of a pig running around on television; another person was panicked for three days about the fate of the nation after watching a political discussion program.

Curiosity and opportunity are risk factors for teenage drug use. Drugs easily infiltrate kiddy hangouts like Internet cafes and video arcades.

So who's doing it?

When adults are dealing with the mania and depression that follows a drug trip, their experience enables them to take a step back and deal with their emotions rationally, but can callow youth do the same? The media is awash with frightening images of busted drug parties and kids hiding their faces behind their clothing being escorted into the police station to have their urine tested, and these images are burnished into the minds of viewers. For those who have cared for and nurtured those kids, how much more harrowing the experience must be.

Birth complications caused 19-year-old A-hung to suffer from a partial loss of movement on one side of his body. Sensitivity about his defect made him temperamental and rebellious.

At the age of 14, he started hanging around with a bad crowd that he had met at pool halls. He began using amphetamines and before long was helping friends as a drug runner. When he ran afoul of the law, his misplaced sense of loyalty made him claim all the responsibility himself, and this convinced police that he was a major dealer. He was held in a juvenile detention center for two months. Once his case came to trial he was given a three-year prison sentence suspended for five years, and was released on probation. But while out on probation A-hung's intentions to make a clean start went up in smoke when once again he found himself in the same bad company as before and, after reverting back to old habits, was again imprisoned for selling drugs.

A-hung's total of six-and-a-half years of prison sentences put him under tremendous strain. Fortunately for him, he came from a stable, loving family that, along with his caseworker, gave him tremendous encouragement. Deeply repenting his earlier actions, he vowed to turn over a new leaf. He took the opportunity while serving time to complete his middle-school education, and since his release has been working for his uncle preparing legal documents by day and attending adult education by night.

"I'm 17, I won't do drugs anymore!" solemnly swears another youthful narcotics offender named Hsiao-chieh, who had already accumulated a record of five arrests for theft, threatening behavior, and narcotics violations. Thanks to a court-sponsored rehabilitation and counseling program, this rebellious youth has regained his bearings after a one-year-plus amphetamine habit.

One bright holiday, Hsiao-chieh went with a group of fellow young probationers and volunteer counselors from the Buddhist organization Tzu Chi to the Aihsin Education Center in Pali, Taipei County. When feeding physically deformed children in wheelchairs, the hardened youth suddenly found himself crying, much to his own surprise. His own body was strong and healthy, yet he took drugs, and even mutilated his own wrists. He began to feel a keen sense of remorse. No longer on probation, Hsiao-chieh is now working and going to vocational school at night, and has continued volunteering his time at Aihsin.

Unraveling statistics

Just how serious is the problem of youth drug abuse?

"Numbers can be confusing," says Professor Yang Shu-lung of National Chung Cheng University's Graduate Institute of Criminology. In recent years, Taiwan has adopted a more lenient stance towards drug abusers, "reprieving the sentence but not the crime." First time offenders are regarded not as criminals, but as sick people. While they needn't receive a sentence or be locked up, they are nonetheless required to spend ten days in a rehab center if the drug or drugs in questions are category one or two. By the second offense, the handling of drug users starts to take on a punitive aspect, as the guilty party is forced to spend an entire year in rehab. Third-time abusers are incarcerated after a period of compulsory rehab.

Revisions to the Narcotics Endangerment Prevention Act were announced in July of 2003, classifying hypnotics like Alprazolam (Xanax) and Diazepam (Valium) as category four controlled substances. However, under current law, neither possession nor consumption of category three and four drugs are criminally punishable offenses. Moreover, with some drugs being essentially non-addictive and free of withdrawal symptoms, there is no need for isolated rehabilitation. Looking at things from a strictly legal perspective, there simply aren't that many young people entering the state rehab apparatus. For instance, at the juvenile detention center in Taichung, only 13 people were admitted to rehab in 2007; in March of 2008, there were only six undergoing treatment.

Panchiao District Court juvenile probation officer Lu Su-wei says that ten years ago, more than half of his 300 cases were drug related, but after the 1999 revision of the Narcotics Endangerment Prevention Act requiring only rehab, without the need for probation, for first-time offenders, that figure has rapidly declined. Now only about 10% of his 70-100 yearly cases involve substance abuse.

Official statistics belie the prevalence of youth drug use, whereas academic studies provide a closer glimpse of reality.

In a 2000 study, National Yang-Ming University Department of Public Health professor Pesus Chou and Academia Sinica Institute of Biomedical Sciences research fellow Cheng Tai-an determined that 1-1.5% of Taiwan's teenaged students had tried drugs.

Investigations done away from the schools painted a different picture of teen drug use. Between 2002 and 2004, National Taiwan University Public Health Department head Chen Wei-chien interviewed teenagers in Taipei's trendy eastern district about their substance use, and when the numbers were added up, the proportion who had tried drugs crept up to 10.8%. In Taipei County, the figure was 5.09%. Moreover, it appeared that amphetamines and sniffing glue, two of the most traditionally popular illicit substances, are gradually being replaced by newer drugs: Ecstasy, a category two substance was the most popular, followed by ketamine, a category three substance.

Usage versus addiction

However, teenage drug use doesn't necessarily imply addiction. For one, drugs like ketamine, Ecstasy, and FM2 (flunitrazepam) are less harmful to the nervous system, and are generally considered to be "soft" drugs that the human body can cope with, as opposed to "hard" drugs like heroin, cocaine, and amphetamines. The former group are less addictive-frequent users are able to function without them and experience no withdrawal symptoms-than legal substances like nicotine and alcohol.

Although the addictiveness of soft drugs is still subject to debate, it is clear that just as excessive drinking is harmful to the health, copious drug use is sure to have deleterious effects. This physical and psychological peril must be even greater for those still in their formative years.

How do we protect tender youth from the ravages of drug abuse? Yang Shu-lung says that last year the US National Institute on Drug Abuse proposed focusing on "reducing risk factors and enhancing protective factors."

"Depressed teens are more likely to get mixed up with drugs," says Wu Chi-yin, a research fellow at Academia Sinica's Institute of Sociology. The presence or lack of a tendency towards depression, and the interaction between family members, play a crucial role in a teen's development. "Sometimes unhappy teens turn to drugs as an escape from reality or as a way to stave off melancholy."

"Close family interaction is the best way to keep kids away from drugs," says Lu Su-wei.

Reducing risk

The strengthening of homes and schools that is essential to "enhancing protective factors" is a massive, time-intensive project. As for the flipside of things, the "reduction of risk factors" is something parents and the kids themselves can undertake, provided they know what to be vigilant against.

What exactly are the risk factors?

Risk factor 1:

Curiosity and opportunity

According to Pesus Chou's research, the predominant reason for trying drugs the first time is curiosity, which was cited by 50% of those surveyed. Next was peer pressure.

"Being in the right place at the right time plays a big role," says Wu Chi-yin. Adults are likely to encounter drugs at nightclubs and bars; kids have no access to those kinds of places, so for them to use drugs requires the perfect matching of venue and ambience, since kids aren't likely to go trolling about for drugs to medicate their depression in solitude.

The right ambience is usually a dance or house party or a similar lively gathering. Life was a lot simpler in the past and afforded kids precious few opportunities to congregate on their own. Over the last 20 years, such gatherings have grown more frequent, giving rise imperceptibly to the right conditions for group drug use.

Yang Shu-lung observes that the recently fashionable drugs Ecstasy, ketamine, and LSD have made their way from traditional drug bazaars like nightclubs and pubs and descended so rapidly on prototypically pubescent hangouts such as pool halls, Internet cafes, and arcades that many have found them hard to resist.

Risk factor 2:

Medicine vs. drugs

Being poorly informed is often a cause behind teenage drug use. Since some controlled substances are legally sanctioned for medicinal purposes and available on prescription, there is a thin line between recreation and treatment. But the differences resulting from dosage, manner of intake, and purpose can be acute indeed.

"Some kids think that Ecstasy and ketamine is just medicine to help you relax and enjoy yourself and not some kind of drug," notes Yang Shu-lung. Failing to comprehend the distinction makes it easy for young people to dismiss the danger.

"Some youngsters are often in compromising environments, but are able to steer clear of trouble," says Wu Chi-yin. These kids are more vigilant and aware of the consequences, and that makes it easier for them to "just say no." There are those who have taken drugs and found the experience-and the accompanying headaches, nausea, and discomfort-to be unappealing, and are thus able to distance themselves. The ones who have to watch out are those headstrong teens who believe themselves impervious to addiction and undertake the experience haphazardly-the careless ones are most liable to find themselves saddled with a bad habit.

Muddled values have gradually lowered modern children's resistance to drugs.

Yang Shu-lung says that a lot of youths believe that taking drugs is innocent fun that doesn't harm others, rationalizing their behavior by saying, "Hey, it's not like I'm stealing or anything!" But sometimes when kids get together in large groups to use drugs, everyone is more likely to get sucked into more trouble.

Some groups have called for decriminalizing the use of the newly popular, so-called "soft" drugs, arguing that they are only marginally addictive, and unlike other drugs like amphetamines, do not induce potentially violent behavior in users. These "victimless crimes" are not worth prosecuting, they contend, and some even claim the government's anti-drug stance is "ideologically motivated" and "a means for the state apparatus to control the populace."

"This kind of libertarian philosophy only serves to encourage kids to use drugs as they learn to use the same rhetoric to justify their own behavior," says Yang.

Risk factor 3:

Variety and affordability

Increased accessibility aside, prosperity and technological change have contributed to the prevalence of drug use amongst young people, as well as the community at large. In the past, cost would have been a major obstacle for kids trying to procure drugs; now with the Internet extending everywhere and new drugs constantly entering circulation, the resulting competition has forced prices way down, placing them within the economic means of younger and younger kids.

According to Su Wei-kuo, a secretary at the Taichung Drug Abstention and Treatment Center, an adult trying to support a category-one drug habit-heroin, for instance-would spend anywhere between NT$4,000 and NT$10,000 per day. Kids typically don't have that kind of capital lying around to sustain such a costly daily habit. They can typically afford only cheaper drugs like ketamine or Ecstasy, whose costs range from NT$300 to NT$800 per pill. Amphetamines, which are favored to maintain alertness over prolonged periods of work, are even cheaper, but as their efficacy is inconsistent, they are less popular now with the younger crowd.

Probation officer Lu Su-wei cautions that while teens generally don't consume the harder to procure-and therefore more expensive-category one and two drugs, the trendy new drugs they take are often synthesized from sundry chemical ingredients and may be of dubious quality. Accordingly, they present great risk, even the possibility of permanent injury.

Risk factor 4:

Legal drugs lead the way

Rejecting nicotine and alcohol is a surefire way to stay clear of other drugs.

Studies have shown that kids most often begin experimenting with illicit substances between the ages of 14 and 16. Drinking and smoking, on the other hand, often starts earlier, between 12 and 13. In other words, one is a prelude to the other.

"Alcohol and nicotine are gateway drugs," says Yang Shu-lung. A good deal of research suggests that alcoholism and drug abuse stem from the same sociological and psychological determinants. While smokers and drinkers don't necessarily go on to use other drugs, that they often lead the way should not be treated lightly.

From "say no" to "say know"

"Dropouts are a group at significant risk," avers Yang Shu-lung. The present drug education programs used in schools have had only limited success, the intimidating skull-and-crossbones on the brochures proving thus far to be a rather lackluster deterrent.

"Drug education should move away from merely telling kids to stay away and focus on giving them the information they need to make good decisions," Yang continues. For instance, kids might want to take drugs to feel sexy or high, but if they know that impotence is a common side effect of these drugs, they may reconsider. Informing is better than simply preaching.

In reality, impaired sexual function is only one of many pernicious outcomes related to drug use.

For example, using the category-two drug LSD, a hallucinogenic that affects the central nervous system, can impair judgment, cause anxiety and panic, induce hallucination and schizophrenic symptoms, and cause violent self-harming behavior. Overdoses can lead to contraction in brain and peripheral circulatory blood vessels, convulsions, and even coma and death.

Extended use of Ecstasy, a stimulant, can be toxic too, leading to hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, abnormal hemostasis, and acute renal failure. It even happens from time to time that a person's body is hypersensitive to the substance, and they die from anaphylactic shock the very first time. "How can one possibly know beforehand if they are one of these people whose bodies simply cannot hold up-the only surefire way to avoid the risk is never to try it in the first place!" says Chien Chun-sheng, chief of the Department of Health's National Bureau of Controlled Drugs.

The recklessness of youth

On the other hand, making mistakes is part of what growing up is all about. "It doesn't make sense to get overly upset about the occasional youthful indiscretion," says Wu Chi-yin. He goes on to say that most kids will go through a tumultuous period while growing up, especially if they have seen divorce, domestic violence or some other forms of family dysfunction, made the wrong friends, or been unable to muster winning efforts in school. These growing pains usually arrive between ages 13 and 19, but research in Taiwan and around the world shows that in the end, 85% of them will go on to lead normal lives, leaving their wild days behind.

Lu Su-wei explains that crime rates peak between 14-15 and 25 years of age, after which time they begin to slack off. The teenage years are a period of searching and feeling things out before entering the workplace and kids are going to make bad decisions along the way. Knowing this, it is only reasonable that society and the law act with the forbearance that allows young people to learn from their mistakes and make a fresh start.

"It's mysterious, even supernatural; it can't be grasped... it goes from being lovable to something terrible. Intangible, yet it can affect you profoundly, even change you...." Aware of their fleeting youth and waning energy, as they leave their e-tripping days behind the authors of e-Flower say it was never their intention to romanticize drug use, but rather to chronicle all the highs and lows of a time in their lives before moving on to the next part of the journey.

Perhaps Big D and Little D were lucky to come back from their trips unscathed. "We sincerely hope there still is a light at the end of the tunnel," they write in closing. But to avoid later regrets, to resolutely resist that tunnel's temptations altogether is surely the wiser course.