Iceland knows how to stop teen substance abuse | Hacker News Reader

Iceland knows how to stop teen substance abuse

mosaicscience.com

122 pointszdw155 comments

All of the pessimism ("This only worked because Iceland is so small/white/etc, it would never work in the US") in this thread baffles me. Are there a lot of other wildly successful approaches we should try first? Did you not read the bits about the Icelandic approach working well in other cities?

If anything, it sounds like the lesson here is that what worked so well is not just the approach, it's the implementation. (It's not like "build a sports facility" or "pass a curfew" or "encourage parents to spend more time with their kids" haven't been tried in the US) What I took home is that those same approaches which have had limited success when done on a small scale work a lot better when they're well-funded and taken seriously and used consistently for a long time.

Sure, but Iceland is so very different from America in so many ways, that it's fair to point that out.

Alcohol for example - there was never any taboo about drinking in Iceland. It was never seen as a justice issue before or after the program.

Also - the communities as a whole were never failing. You had 'decent families', decent municipalities etc..

I'd imagine, in most of America where there is decent governance, decent jobs, good families: there is not a massive problem with smoking and alcohol. There might be issues with marijuana and hard drugs possibly, both of which represent a different kind of issue entirely.

To me - the 'Iceland' solution seems pretty straightforward on the scale of 'social malaise' to deal with. 14 year olds getting drunk and smoking - just by 'cracking down' a little bit on under-age serving, liquor stores/cigarettes - changing a few laws, trying to change social norms - you'd likely be able to move the needle a bit. A more integrated social program would yield even better benefits as we see.

But imagine an Aboriginal community trying to do the same thing: there is usually a lack of coherent leadership, lack of basic justice and trust in the justice system, lack of funds, and much deeper social problems (incidence of rape is through the roof, there's a lot of violence, suicide etc.), there's poverty, joblessness, and very few have any hope for the future. Now that puts alcohol abuse in a different category.

If there were 'normal suburbs' in America with vicious underage drinking and smoking problems, I'd say Iceland provides a good solution.

Outside of that, I think it's much more complex.

Sure, YMMV, but is America's current system putting up results positive enough that we shouldn't try something new? (I'd argue it's an abject failure anyway you measure it)

Aside from the fact that this is 100% speculation on 0 data and sounds to me to be both wrong[1] and more than a little bit biased, why would this complaint even matter if it were true? "It won't work as well in a shitty poor neighborhood as it will in a nice one" is very likely going to be true of every attempt to reduce every social ill. It doesn't follow that they wouldn't work at all or would not be worth the cost or should not be tried.

1. I can't find drinking-by-income data, but anecdotally, I think the idea that underaged drinking and smoking is only a problem in poor neighborhoods would make most Americans laugh out loud.

"[1] I can't find drinking-by-income data, but anecdotally"

Wow, your "non-reference reference" is a brilliant way to criticize that my comment was not based on factual reference!

I didn't say that 'drinking and smoking' is only a problem in 'poor neighbourhoods'. So your comment is not relevant.

In fact, I didn't even refer to 'poor neighbourhoods', I indicated 'Aboriginal communities' in particular - where the problems are systematic and acute.

What is 'laughable' is that anyone would consider that the total social break-down in Aboriginal communities - and the issues that some kids in wealthy areas are remotely related, or should be treated the same way.

In Scandinavian countries, as I mentioned, there is no 'taboo' about drinking. It's 'not positive' but nevertheless 'socially acceptable' to be a kid, drinking every so often. A 'drunk 14 year old' is nothing to make a huge fuss about. Of course, 'a community of drunk 14 year olds' is.

In America - there would indeed be much fuss over a single incidence of fairly underage drinking. It's not socially accepted.

There are basically zero middle or upper class areas in America wherein 42% of 14-16 year year olds have been 'drunk in the last month' and also none where 25% of 14-16 year olds are smoking.

In America overall, the data (which was trivial to find) has it at about 5% [1] (using average of 8th grade and 10th grade).

As it would stand America already has lower teen drunkenness than Iceland even after Icelands 'amazing social program'.

Iceland before: 41%, after: 7%. America now: 5%.

Whoops!

Also - smoking is definitely a much greater issue among lower economic classes, this is consistent in most advanced countries. Drinking - it's a mixed bag. College kids drink the most of any group.

[1] https://responsibility.org/get-the-facts/research/statistics...

> As it would stand America already has lower teen drunkenness than Iceland even after Icelands 'amazing social program'. Whoops!

That would be a real zinger if I had said it wasn't. Look, I'm not sure what you're on about, but it doesn't seem to be related to my comment. Could you go find someone who disagrees with whatever-it-is you think about Aboriginal communities and argue with them?

I see this common theme in thread, a sort of asinine pedantic appeal to "data." It's not as if those that recognize clearly that "solutions" for Iceland and it's, as others have correctly, very small and largely homogenous population will not bear the same results in the US do not somehow believe in science or "data."

It may seem like hand waving to those constantly repeating the "data" refrain but it is also very naive ignore the rather obvious qualitative analysis. World societies are not like ant colonies.

There is not enough time in the world to gather complete and precise sociological datasets and even if there were, it would, honestly, be a waste of time for those some, and this will unpopular, common sense about the problem.

It's sort of ironic that those crying most about the data are just shrugging off the several orders of magnitude quantitative difference between Iceland and the US across a panoply of population datapoints.

You cannot just try every single possible experiment for "completeness"; it is impractical and especially when it flies in the face of common sense (or substitute "good qualitative analysis" if you like).

Also, on some level it is a bit silly, do people think there have not been after school programs in the US already? It is hardly a panacea; I mean it is not even in the ballpark.

> a sort of asinine pedantic appeal to "data."

Aka facts and evidence, as opposed to wild speculation based on gut feelings?

You're just committing the same flawed reasoning I'm talking about. Human behavior is complicated, your view is, and I don't mind stating this absolutely, is very naive, if well intentioned.

You make it seem like alcohol and drugs are mostly problems of the poor / slums.

I've been to rich communities, and that's where I see perhaps the most drug and alcohol consumption, all in the name of "fun" (Hell, I even unfortunately know more than a few people who as teenagers got drunk on Moet, but that's a whole other tier). Of course, in troublesome communities people will seek refuge in drugs, but "normal" suburbs are not immune to it, it just manifests differently.

Edit: Gonna add, drugs are expensive. If anything, I think I'd assume economically troubled people have a harder time maintaining a drug-filled lifestyle.

>Alcohol for example - there was never any taboo about drinking in Iceland.

Over 60% of Icelandic voters voted for complete alcohol prohibition in 1915, and in 1933 much of the ban was lifted; however it wasn't until 1989 that all of the restrictions were removed. I don't know how you can say it was never taboo or an issue of justice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_in_Iceland#Prohibition

Diversity is not the issue, poverty is; serious, chronic poverty the type of which Iceland doesn't have.

Reducing non-legal-substance abuse is considerably easier in Iceland as well; comparative to the US, it's quite difficult to find drugs in Iceland -- they don't have an equivalent Mexico[0] (or other similarly unstable country) for which narcotics can trivially flow through as Iceland is an island.

[0] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... see transnational issues, illicit drugs

Where there's demand, there's supply.

Mexico wouldn't be such a drug-trafficking powerhouse if it didn't have the world's biggest consumer market right above.

Without getting into a discussion of addiction, the choices of those at risk of addiction, decision making in young adults, or any other aspect of this kerfuffle, even if Iceland had the demand, they wouldn't have the supply -- it's incredibly hard to get high on drugs that aren't physically there. Access is a major factor.

They might not have anything that needs to be imported en masse, but they would still have drugs that are trivial to produce locally, like weed and meth.

Sure, weed or shake-and-bake meth is going to happen, but weed isn't very serious (compared to heroin or cocaine) and small-scale production of hard drugs will yield impure, weak product at a rate that won't support societal usage (and ramping up production requires infrastructure that _would_ get noticed on a small island).

I think you'd be surprised at how much can be produced locally when you don't have competitors with an economy of scale.

Bro, drug-dealing is a multi-billion enterprise. Drug dealers are using 747s, submarines, tunnels, speed-boats, etc to supply.

Trust me, there IS drugs in Iceland. And I can asure you, if there were a spike in demand drug dealers wouldn't fold their arms. Locals would grow weed/cook meth in their backyard and find ways to smuggle foreign product too.

> Bro, drug-dealing is a multi-billion enterprise. Drug dealers are using 747s, submarines, tunnels, speed-boats, etc to supply...Trust me, there IS drugs in Iceland.

Grammatically, 'there "are" drugs in Iceland', but that's besides the point. Anecdotally, I've been around them in Iceland and they were treated as a rarity and not like they are here (northeast US), where I could find them within 30 minutes of asking.

It's quite difficult to make a tunnel or a submarine that travels from Mexico from Iceland. There are few airports in Iceland and they take smuggling quite seriously as by-air is one of the very few ways to transport illicit goods. Finally, the social mores around production of methamphetamine are far different than hearing someone you know took a pill while partying. Ease of supply chain deeply matters.

edit: Also, please don't call me "bro"

> Also, please don't call me "bro"

Sorry, won't do.

> Grammatically, 'there "are" drugs in Iceland', but that's besides the point.

Welp, honest gramatical mistake from a non-native speaker. Even the best of us make mistakes sometimes, thanks for the correction.

Having said that, please don't correct me any more, I personally felt it more pedantic than helpful, and I think you can read over small issues like that to keep conversation centered on what matters (:

> Anecdotally, I've been around them in Iceland and they were treated as a rarity and not like they are here (northeast US), where I could find them within 30 minutes of asking.

Anecdotally, I go to school in the northeast US, and I know the density of consumers there is pretty high; I assume higher than Iceland. Unsurprising there's dealers all over too.

I see what debate we're falling into here; does supply create it's own demand? There's plenty of literature on the issue, and I will agree with you in that the easy of supply matters.

Your original comment and subsequent replies make me believe you think drugs is a supply-centered issue, when in fact thats far from true, and I know this for two reasons:

1. The US has for years been on a "war on drugs", and now they brought Mexico into it. Yet this hasn't been effective at all as a means of stopping drug consumption.

2. Island tackled drug demand instead, and it had fantastic results.

Is supply in Iceland constrained? For certain drugs perhaps. But this doesn't matter to the main point of the article. We can have a look at a point I made you didn't address; weed. Weed consumption is on the ground in Iceland, yet anyone could grow weed in their backyard to satisfy supply. Alcohol is legal in Iceland too, I suppose there is a lot of supply. 20 years ago, they were trying to cut supply and it didn't work. So now they did something different, and it worked.

Look, if you think the reason the US is in such a bad drug situation all because of Mexico, I can't convince you you're wrong, you'll have to figure that one out on your own. What would convince you of this? What data is needed to convince people like you of the fact the problem is in the demand and so the US should focus on the well-being of its population instead of paying lots of money so Mexicans kill each other?

> Having said that, please don't correct me any more, I personally felt it more pedantic than helpful,

And won't do :)

Didn't mean it to be pedantic -- I spend a lot of time around non-native english speakers and "correct mistakes in passing" without any sort of judgment. Likewise, they correct my grammatical/word-choice issues with non-english languages, but apologies if I offended as that was not the point.

> Your original comment and subsequent replies make me believe you think drugs is a supply-centered issue

Not entirely, but in first-time users or casual users, it definitely changes the equation of whether or not they get pulled into an evening.

> 1. The US has for years been on a "war on drugs", and now they brought Mexico into it. Yet this hasn't been effective at all as a means of stopping drug consumption.

I think Mexico has always been a part of it -- the US is quite effective in reducing/policing large-scale illicit drug production within its borders, but this doesn't really matter when we have a neighbor with no meaningful interest in doing so as long as the harm is extra-national.

> We can have a look at a point I made you didn't address; weed.

Sorry, I mentioned this in a different comment, but weed is a far different thing than what I consider to be serious drugs. It's still not something you can wildly grow in Icelandic climate or soil though.

> Look, if you think the reason the US is in such a bad drug situation all because of Mexico, I can't convince you you're wrong, you'll have to figure that one out on your own.

I didn't say that the US's addiction problems are fully because of Mexico (or other weakly policed nations), near did I think I imply it.

> What data is needed to convince people like you of the fact the problem is in the demand and so the US should focus on the well-being of its population instead of paying lots of money so Mexicans kill each other?

Do you really think Americans pay money for Mexicans to kill each other? I'm sorry, but this is absurd. Making something illegal will reduce its supply (drugs, guns) and create a market for criminals. If a country can't control the criminals within its borders, or worse, as is the case with Mexico, lets itself be controlled by crime and corruption, that's a demonstration of a failure of government.

I'm from an island nation, albeit a bigger one (Australia). The isolation does limit supply, cocaine is expensive here and I've been told availability is sketchy.

Meth is cheap and plentiful though, any redneck/bogan can setup a lab. Weed is practically given away.

Indeed. Just look at the painkiller abuse in USA to see that substance abuse is the problem, whether legal or not is irrelevant.

There's a marked difference between a xanax-popping soccer-mom and level of access required to create endemic addiction in teenagers.

Like how moms aren't "levels of access"? I don't understand what you're trying to say.

In a uniquely American way, the teenager doesn't have access to a doctor, may not have access to a car, almost certainly doesn't have access to public transportation. How then, do they get drugs?

Via slightly older drug-dealing friends from school, which is different enough from a mom who goes to the doctor, gets a prescription, and simply fills it from a pharmacy.

How is this relevant to the results of the program described in the article? Iceland was still an island thirty years ago, yes?

Also it's not clear how this is related to either parent comment. Seems like it was just tacked on here to be higher in the thread.

Netherlands is very prosperous but you can get any drug you can imagine here; one has nothing to do with the other

Getting drugs in Iceland is laughably easy there are facebook groups (many!) Where dealers post pictures of products, the product range and a list of prices and a phone number where you can reach them.

Drugs are expensive compared to elsewhere but you get free delivery. Any local would be able to access amphetamines, cocaine, weed, etc. Within an hour at almost any time of day.

The police monitors these groups but beyond that is rather ineffective.

???

Please tell me how drug-use is a poor people problem, and rich people who can afford all the drugs they want without falling into debt, destroying their personal relationships or themselves get by.

When poor people use drugs it's called a problem, but when rich-people use drugs it's called a party smh.

Golly. I wonder what we should try to fix.

Ok, so why don't we work on fixing that? ... Oh wait, it costs money, time, organization...

There. Exactly there. We have something they don't have, thus it won't work. Do you have any evidence that there is a link to poverty in any of this? Did you not read about results in Bucharest? Have you _been_ to Bucharest? No,you guys are no special snowflakes and until somebody has tried a similar program with similar funding levels, engagement and duration and has found it not to work, you don't get to say "we have poverty".

I agree with akytt, though I think there's a more general truth in play that hasn't been noted. Ongoing poverty perpetuates itself, which is why none of the short-term programs in the US have had lasting impact. We succeed, and find a way to uplift a cohort of people from poverty, but we don't address the root cause which would reduce the rate at which people enter into poverty. And so, a similar size group slides in to fill the uplifted cohort's place. When economic circumstances are favorable, fewer people are in poverty. Other times, more. Creating permanent economic booms would be great, but we don't know how to do it long-term.

What we do know how to do is to ensure that youths have the opportunity to learn, grow, and become self-aware before they enter the high-risk period of their adult lives. In the US, the focus is on access to academic education. We don't really address personal growth and self-awareness, except in using punishments to force youths to adhere to rules and conform to a certain degree.

Trill-i-am (GP) argues that perpetual poverty will engender escapism, resulting in drug use and reducing or neutralizing any productive effects of such a system in the US. Akytt (P) notes that the system is adjusted to fit the circumstances when implemented. I propose that on a longer time scale this program may result in a reduction of poverty because individual adults will be more likely to do something productive with their emotional energy and free time. The program puts kids in a situation where they can freely make self-directed choices that can improve themselves or uplift a team.

I have two questions. I would like to know what the average TV/[non-self-directed streaming] time is for kids in the US and Iceland. I would like to know what happens to local (adult and child both) poverty rates as well as adult drug use rates in sustained program cities and in comparable non-program cities over time.

Sure, some things are different, and it's important to understand why solutions work in one country, and how they may not work in others. But the US has a large problem with thinking that our problems are unique when they aren't.

The largest metropolitan area in the US, NYC, also has this same mentality.

Why do you believe we haven't tried this in the US?

The problem is the amount of money vs the number of students served. Midnight basketball and similar programs do indeed work, but the per capita expense is not small.

In addition, these after school programs come with a significant liability issue in the US. Many after-school programs have been nuked because nobody wants to have to hire police and security for when a bunch of drunk idiots show up and start a brawl.

People here aren't the only pessimists.

If you check the 2005 vs 2012 suicide stats for iceland you'll see that in the same period substance abuse might have decrease, however suicide rates in Iceland have significantly increased...

Interesting report. I wonder how they motivated kids to attend the after-school programs? It doesn't really talk about that extensively. At least for me, I used to attend an after-school program and a major motivator was being able to spend time doing things with girls I liked. The party scene at that time mostly was a proxy for the same thing. Giving teens a chance to socially and romantically interact outside of the structure of school might be all that's needed to get people to show up and participate.

I pretty much agree with their conclusions though from my own personal experiences. The most trouble I've gotten into in my life, even as an adult, was out of boredom more than anything else.

I thought that's something that churches try to monopolize.

Well, religion and the church have been successfully used for centuries to control people, provide a moral compass, and give teenagers and children a place to interact with each other outside of the rigors of daily life. So, yeah... Basically.

Well what I guess I'm saying is that this phenomena of having the government provide such places ... competes with a main focus of churches - and in the US, churches have large political power.

I guess I don't see such a solution being feasible here for that reason.

This article says there are only 49 places to buy alcohol in Iceland, which does seem like it could make it much easier to control.

https://warontherocks.com/2015/09/your-guide-to-drinking-in-...

Oh man. And then they drink 'till comma whenever they get out of the country, because alcohol it's so expensive in Iceland.

How do I know? Married to an Icelandic woman, have seen my fair share of drunk Icelandic people when they come to Portugal on vacation, and do they get wasted...

It seems to scale too, when rich Saudis are on vacation...

It's a very tiny country, population 300k.

Why does that matter?

Does the size a country have much of an impact on how they deal with fat, sugar, caffeine or legal substances from a health standpoint? If not, then why would it affect illegal ones?

I would expect that the number of anything (including alcohol stores) would correlate with population size, no?

That article is communicating a false impression -- 49 is not a very large number, but that's more then enough liquor stores ("vinbudins", similar in function to Sweden's "systembolagets") for a very small country.

Additionally, that's just take-home liquor; Iceland has many bars and restaurants, as well as many places that sell low-alcohol beer.

The point is not controlling liquor stores though, the point is making sure teens don't feel the need to consume alcohol

Could you find towns or regions of 300k in the USA with a similar lack of teen substance abuse too?

this is an interesting question. without any data to back it up, my suspicion as an american is no, I would guess you'd have to look at much smaller towns to find an area like that.

For kicks, I looked for one. I got as far as Anchorage, Alaska. In 2012, ~35% of "youth" have consumed alcohol in the past 30 days

Research: http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/research/2010/1010.voa/1010.04...

List of Cities: https://ballotpedia.org/Largest_cities_in_the_United_States_...

BYU and the surrounding "culture" - no drugs, not even coffee!

I'm so glad I had just 6 hours of school per day. While I did play in a music schools ensemble, I'm much more fond of the time I spent in bands and esembles away from schools hierarchy and with people I especially cared about. Same goes for doing art and programming founding a venture for concerts and so much more...

I imagine that family-centrism makes it much worse for the minority who have abusive narcissists for parents.

This is a problem in every society, and must be addressed in a different way. If the role of government is to provide its children with a fundamental understanding of themselves and how to manage their individual motivations, perhaps the resulting adults will be better equipped to rise above their parents' shortcomings? Strong family and team dynamics will pull how healthier people live into stronger contrast in such a situation.

Oy, this thread. I've griped about this before - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12864151#12865128 - we really need a snappy name for the "I know it works in every other country, but it can't possibly work in the US" argument-slash-fallacy.

It's not inherently wrong and it can be true, but it's used so reflexively and across so many different domains (drug use, public transit, taxes, guns, health, voting, labor rights) that I have to think it's more of a thought-terminating-cliché to shut down any discussion of the topic than an honest attempt to find a solution. People just don't want to think about it, and it causes a ton of cognitive dissonance to see that a solution they politically dislike can work, so they jump to this.

You can probably call it racism...

I figured my comment was inflammatory enough as is so I didn't mention it, but yes, that is probably part of it.

> "I know it works in every other country, but it can't possibly work in the US"

The 'murican bigness' argument.

You'd think there was only one level of government.

Doesn't anybody have a problem that the nature of their approach is first and foremost prohibition?

It would appear that the nature of their approach is first and foremost to ensure that any change they make is data-driven best practice for the situation at hand. In iceland, it included prohibition of purchase by minors and provision to minors by adults. More importantly, their changes created a situation where children were more likely to spend more of their time with adults who cared about them, in an active and engaged society. Curfews make me uncomfortable, but I can see that this encourages children to be in safe places overnight. Prohibition makes me uncomfortable, but it makes consumption more expensive and difficult, so child users will be less likely to become addicts. Widely available after-school classes and programs... have no downsides other than cost, which (it would seem) are clearly worth it.

Where does best practice lie? If I were to start a civilization from scratch, I think I would use this model as a strong data point when organizing how education and the laws pertaining to youth were concerned.

I have some more libertarian leanings than some of the implementations presented can accommodate, but perhaps if I were an Icelandic teen I would direct my frustrations on a hobby or class I picked up because my government mandated that I have access to it if I wanted to.

They cut smoking/drinking by providing facilities for after school programs for kids to sign up for, which presumably a large portion have been told to go by their parents (probably to stop them from smoking/drinking).

I know this observation has zero bearing on the data presented, but I also noticed that not a single child in those photos has anything resembling a smile. NONE of them look happy to be there.

Maybe it's a cultural thing but I don't always associate smiling with "happy". My wife were looking at some old pics of our son and we commented how happy he must have been in one of them because of how serious he looked!

NB I'm in Scotland, which does have a bit of a reputation for being a bit dour. ;-)

The photos in the article are not shot in-the-moment. The children pose in front of a camera, probably with lighting around. They don’t smile because they are in a kind of serious setting, look into a camera and do not interact with anyone.

Edit: Maybe the photographer is bad at soliciting emotions from his subjects.

Please dont't base your worldview on american customs. In some countries, doing a forced smile for photos just isn't a thing

I want to move there. Everyone assumes my lack of smiling means I'm not happy.

It's a cultural thing. They think smiling for cameras is weird.

The weird requirement that everyone smile at cameras and photographers only take pictures of smiling people is a relatively recent cultural convention, started in the US and then spread around the world by US influence. I think it has something to do with the culture of photography used for advertising/sales.

If you try taking pictures of very young children who haven’t yet been indoctrinated into the smile-for-the-camera tradition, they’ll make a wide variety of facial expressions for the camera. But American (& al.) children learn very young that the cultural norm is to always make sure to smile when a camera is pointed at you. Even if the children don’t figure this out for themselves (and they usually do), parents and other adults are often quick to tell them to smile or scold them for not smiling.

If you look at pictures of people in posed pictures in the 19th century or in parts of the world where there are few cameras/photographs, the standard expression is usually a serious/formal one. And if you look at candid pictures, people will just be making whatever natural expression they had.

As a photographer, 80% of my time is consumed with removing the frozen into frigid mask smile from the faces of my subjects.

Natural emotions and thus facial expressions are fluid and involve things beyond our control.

A smile held for the camera accompanied with non-smiling eyes (very rarely can someone create a smile in the eyes and hold it) looks unnatural.

I dunno, I visited Iceland a few months ago and the people there seemed way happier than most people in my social circles here in Seattle.

Came here exactly to point out the stern faces of the kids... as noted it might be a cultural thing, but for me it immediately caught my attention.

The art director has a choice to accept or reject photos as they see fit. The art director can select a photographer by style, and ask the photographer to take pictures of any variety.

The photographer will direct the subjects to elicit fitting behavior for the shoot, even if mugging for the camera seems dishonest, a professional photographer will try to coax exagurated behavior from non-professional subjects.

That they are all aligned in the same style would indicate an editor's intent. The desire to convey a premise.

Perhaps:

  serious facial expressions 
  for a serious subject.

The kids wore appropriate clothes. The kids were posed. Had they blinked or crossed their eyes for any of the shots, more pictures would have been taken until a professional shot had been captured.

It's not unheard of for an editor to reject an entire photoshoot if it distracts from the content. They'll spend the money to get it done right, if it doesn't work.

If the subjects were all giving the middle finger, because it was normal in Iceland, do you really think that would have landed in the article?

It's a cultural thing. A lot of cultures developed in cold high latitudes seem to discourage open expression of emotions for some obscure reason.

Now go to the mediterranean riviera and everyone is smiling broadly and talking loudly even when they feel like murdering someone.

In some cultures a fake display of emotion like a fake smile is consider a form of deception, not much dissimilar from a lie.

TL;DR: Idle kids 'waste' their energy getting into self destructive behaviors. When the youthful energy is focused on a useful and valued skill, the chances of addictive behaviors is significantly lowered.

TL;DR 2: Using a continuous and meticulous data-driven approach, Iceland was able to positively exercise large-scale social change.

Well, "large scale"... it's a culturally/racially homogeneous country of a little over 300k people. Whatever works there will probably not work anywhere else

Please edit for typos and grammar fixes. Don't change the content.

The exact solution may not work, but the overall approach to finding a solution very well could.

I also somewhat disagree with the notion that systems working in smaller countries cannot work in larger or more diverse countries (esp. regarding free education the US). It may be really, really damn hard, but such is the price of advancement of society.

I think "stopping substance abuse" and "free education" are very different problems. The first one is completely social, at least, while the second one has a strong economical component.

Calling Iceland even a 'smaller country' seems a bit of a leap, even if it were a city it would still be far from being considered a large one.

> Calling Iceland even a 'smaller country' seems a bit of a leap, even if it were a city it would still be far from being considered a large one.

Just a few numbers to put in perspective:

* Iceland's population (as of 2013) was 323,000.

* As of 2015, the US had 58 cities whose population was over 320,000. Combined, these cities account for about 16% of the total population of the US.

Though, even that's a bit misleading, because city populations aren't actually as meaningful as metropolitan populations (since city boundaries are arbitrary, and traveling between a city and the adjacent suburbs is easy). Since Iceland is an island, it's more elucidating to compare it to metropolitan areas:

* The US has 155 metropolitan areas whose population is larger than the 320,000. Together, these cities account for 74.7% of the US population. So, three-quarters of people living in the United States live in a metropolitan area whose population is greater than that of the entire country of Iceland.

That's beautifully put. Thank you.

Why are all of you going on about race?

... will probably not work ...

I've enjoyed many of your comments, but these kind of phrases are almost impossible to argue with. Why won't they work? What would it take to make them work? Moreover, if it is true that heterogeneity implies data-driven impotence, how do we exert change to govern ourselves in a smaller scale, more homogeneous way?

I believe a data-driven approach has worked here specifically because it's a very very small country with a very homogeneous culture. If we multiply the population by 1000, and if we introduce minorities and other agents that increase the heterogeneity of the population, the data-driven approach would stop working because there simply are too many things to take care of. It's like trying to win a war: as the amount of concurrent battles approaches infinity, so does the complexity of the war, and therefore the chances of winning sharply decrease.

The solution, as you just said, is to govern ourselves in a smaller scale. Apply data-driven solutions (like this one from Iceland) to smaller communities, one by one. Also, make sure those who apply these solutions are knowledgeable about how those smaller communities work.

You make it sound as if everyone in Iceland is literally the same person, and Mexican/African-American/Asian/White teens are irrevocably disjoint creatures from different planets or something.

There is a popular smart phone application in Iceland that people use to find out if the person they are nominally attracted to is a cousin or similar close family relation.

I wonder if the parent would take that as a challenge to create a startup around creating such an app for the US, since, well, apparently there is no compelling reason absent a pile of data to not think what works in one country won't work in another country .... That's not meant to be aggressive but I think it is a clear indictment of the reasoning used by many others rejecting what I think is a very obvious position.

All well-behaved squares fit right into the same square hole.

The not-so-well-behaved usually aren't square, and usually don't fit in anywhere.

I don't care if you downvote me.

The guidelines ask us not to go on about downvotes:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Apply data-driven solutions (like this one from Iceland) to smaller communities, one by one.

Funnily enough, TFA says precisely this.

So it might not work on a national level anywhere else. What's to stop it being done at a city level everywhere else?

...a city not being an island?

What difference does that make? The war on drugs is just as much a failure in isolated nations. They can manufacture locally easy enough.

Yes, but keep in mind that the "data driven" part is just a tool.

You could have the Joker from the Batman series doing data-driven evil stuff.

Data driven is almost a synonym for 'the scientific method', which can hardly be described as a tool.

wat?

The Scientific Method is one of the most powerful tools we have!

I don't really want to quibble over definitions, but most would define the Scientific Method as a series of methods, subject to change and continuous improvement, a complex interplay of various processes. Tools, for me at least, are applied to the Scientific Method. The tool is well defined, whereas the Scientific Method is an abstract concept within which tools are used.

But it's not clear, see also this excellent Quora Answer: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-a-theor...

'Idle' adults do the same, and it's worth pointing out that young teenagers aren't permitted to contribute to society in other meaningful ways e.g. by getting a job if they can and prefer to.

Of course they can contribute: they can help their families with day-to-day tasks, join scouts or other volunteer groups, help friends with homework. We had a Spring Cleaning day at my kids' school where about 25 teenagers scrubbed the bathrooms, painted over graffiti, washed windows, and decorated bulletin boards.

I don't wish to imply that getting a job is the only meaningful thing a teen could be doing. However there are plenty of teens who would love to get paid jobs as say, programmers. They are denied because of old laws intended to prevent poor families forcing kids into mines or factories for twelve hours a day. Yet most of what teens are coerced into doing at present is 'make work'. It is this fact which explains the lack of motivation, not idleness or some kind of pathology requiring 'intervention'.

One result is an awesome local music scene. A country with the population of a town (300k) has a better and more active music scene than I have experienced anywhere.

The music festival in November every year is amazing and easy to get to from Europe and North America. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DscddNRltLw

very contained and rather unique place. very little of their success is transferable elsewhere though.

it's easy to police borders of a super tiny country in the middle of atlantic ocean, not interesting place for smugglers. (been there, and apart from Reykjavik whole island is almost completely empty with tiny closed villages here and there).

> A law was also passed prohibiting children aged between 13 and 16 from being outside after 10pm in winter and midnight in summer.

totalitarian approach, could be successful but also strapping every kid to the bed would prevent drug consumption. its a question how far will state go to remove freedom to protect citizens.

What does border policing have to do with the article?

The rest of that sentence indicates it has to do with smuggling. In other words, given the border situation, there should be less contraband availability. And so presumably less abuse of controlled substances.

I'm not sure it really is a major factor, but it's a valid point to raise.

Ah, but this is not a comparison study between Iceland and other countries, this is a comparison between Iceland today and Iceland in 1998.

So the 'smugglers did it' hypothesis must be that 20 years ago, Iceland was larger and located closer to major continents, making it a better target for smuggling contraband, but that volatile icelanic geology has moved it out into the north atlantic and led to the reported changes in juvenile delinquency and substance abuse. Possible. We should conduct further studies to eliminate this confounding factor.

Has snark ever been a convincing tool? I think it must be among the very least effective tactics available.

The point here is that due to having less contraband, any efforts to restrict the substances can be more effective. If there's more contraband floating around, restrictions are harder to enforce.

In other words, you can get more result for your effort if there aren't alternative ways to obtain the substances.

> very little of their success is transferable elsewhere though.

Could you elaborate why you come to this conclusion?

> it's easy to police borders of a super tiny country in the middle of atlantic ocean, not interesting place for smugglers.

Alcohol and cigarettes are not marked as contraband. There is no reason to assume smuggling had any effect on substance abuse.

> apart from Reykjavik whole island is almost completely empty with tiny closed villages here and there).

like most of the mid-west?

> totalitarian approach,

and forcing children to attend school for the majority of their waking day isn't? They haven't reach adult age yet and most people would agree that children are not able to fully appreciate the extend of their actions.

> its a question how far will state go to remove freedom to protect citizens.

Judging by the US 'war on drugs', I'd say US citizens are willing to remove many freedoms, children and adults alike.

> like most of the mid-west?

No? You might not be from the US, but the Midwest is relatively populated for its size, especially compared to the West.

US Census data: https://www.census.gov/popclock/data_tables.php?component=gr...

Map of the US Census classifications: https://www.census.gov/geo/img/webatlas/Region.png

You are right. I'm not from the US and my definition of Midwest was totally off. This map confirms my ignorance: https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/2522624ada2c1f9e0fafb75cca09442...

Thanks for pointing it out.

> totalitarian approach

I'm guessing you didn't know that roughly 70% of US cities also have a youth curfew in effect? (http://www.usmayors.org/publications/curfew.htm, from a 1995 study)

The last time I checked Iceland's population was 323,002 mostly homogeneous racially similar people in geographically and economically similar region.

Good for Iceland that their teenagers don't smoke as much. But there is little information for other countries in there.

Smoking is going out of fashion pretty fast in USA too.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/12/13/teens-d...

> Smoking is going out of fashion pretty fast in USA too.

Source?

Yes, Smoking traditional tobacco is going out of fashion pretty much around the world. It's been replaced by the increasing popular E-Cigarrettes / "Vaping", which is also Tobacco and poses the same health risks as traditional tobacco.

Especially very prevalent among-st Teenagers and young people. Heavily marketed by Big Tobacco as "Safe".

Sources:

1) CDC: Tobacco Use Among Middle and High School Students — United States, 2011–2015: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6514a1.htm?s_cid=mm...

1) England: Smoking rate continues to decrease while vaping gains in popularity http://www.vapingpost.com/2016/09/22/england-smoking-rate-co...

2) The good news is that cigarettes are out these days. The bad news is that tobacco is still in. http://www.teenvogue.com/story/vaping-tobacco-popularity

> poses the same health risks as traditional tobacco

I'm sorry, what? It may pose health risks, but I have not seen anything remotely resembling evidence it poses the same health risks as smoking or chewing.

burning leaves doesn't produce same amount of harmful stuff as vaping (which still isn't healthy, but com on, lets use some common sense here)

You sound like the US government, somehow redefining the word tabacco to include things which have nothing to do with tabacco.

>E-Cigarrettes / "Vaping", which is also Tobacco and poses the same health risks as traditional tobacco.

This is wrong, and absolutely harmful information to spread. Cigarette smoking causes cancer through burning tobacco plant matter, a process that releases a variety of toxic chemicals. Vaporization of e-liquid does not burn tobacco plant matter, and thus doesn't have the same issues.

E-liquid is basically nicotine, glycerol and/or proplyene glycol solute, and flavoring. Nicotine replacement products aren't associated with cancer risk. The solute is much the same stuff as in asthma inhalers. There isn't really good research for the flavoring, but it's generally ingredients that are recognized as safe to put in food.

Overall, vaping is likely at least an order of magnitude safer than smoking. Probably two. That's not anywhere near "the same health risks as traditional tobacco." I'm personally more worried about spending lots of time near busy roads. If a policy causes X more people to vape per person that no longer smokes, X would have to be at least 100 for me to think it's a net negative.

  Nicotine replacement products aren't associated with cancer risk

There is evidence that Nicotine replacement products do increase the risk of cancer. Every source I've read says that the risk is less than smoking cigarettes, but vaping (for example) is still an increased risk over not using nicotine at all.

Current NHS advice puts vaping at 95% less risk than smoking, which is to say an increased risk (5% of the smoking risk), compared to not vaping.

- https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree/help-and-advice/e-cigarettes

- http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2009/04/24/can-nicot...

- http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/04April/Pages/NicotineGumCancer....

- http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/prevention-and-...

Yeah, the research on nicotine replacement products isn't very mature. The links you gave are interesting, but more along the lines of "nicotine can do the same sort of things to mouth cells that happens when you have mouth cancer", not "we took a look at X number of people and looked at mouth cancer incident rates".

The NHS advice is interesting, thanks for contributing it. It's a good sign that I'm on the right track - I put it at "one to two orders of magnitude", or to use the same units, 1% to 10% of the cancer risk of cigarettes. The NHS is likely biased towards saying things cause cancer (because incentives - nobody causes a ruckus if something they thought causes cancer is safe, but everyone gets way riled up if something the NHS thinks is safe causes cancer). So my updated belief is now that vaping causes less than 1% of the cancer that smoking does, per user.

It's probably worth avoiding e-juice with diacetyl, though.

> Nicotine replacement products aren't associated with cancer risk

This is what's really wrong, and absolutely harmful information to spread.

Your source for all these claims you are making about Vaping being "Safe"?

Stealing a source from elsewhere in the thread:

The NHS estimates that vaping is no more than 5% of the danger of smoking.

(https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree/help-and-advice/e-cigarettes)

Heavy smoking is roughly the equivalent of losing somewhere between one and three healthy years of life.

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361023/)

Combine the two estimates at their most conservative, add a tad of fudge factor, and heavy vaping use will at worst cost you two months of healthy living. People regularly make worse tradeoffs than this - obesity, amount and recklessness of driving, playing professional American Football, and many others are likely worse.

Whether or not that counts as "safe" is up to you and your risk tolerance, of course. As a non-smoker, that's safe enough for me to try vaping to see if nicotine a stimulant worth using.

Vaping is safer: https://wallethub.com/blog/is-vaping-bad-for-you/23907/

Conflating tobacco with nicotine is also a bad move.

wallethub.com link? Really? Ever heard of Astroturfing?

The Big Tobacco and Vaping Lobbyists have tons of "blog posts" and "research" news that "debunk" all the bad things about Vaping and Smoking.

Required Viewing: Astroturf and manipulation of media messages | Sharyl Attkisson | TEDx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU

I'm familiar with the idea of astroturfing. I majored in biochemistry. And while I haven't read the research, it seems fairly straight-forward.

Nicotine and some flavors are dissolved into food-safe glycerin. Then that mixture is raised to a temperature where it becomes a gas, but not a temperature high enough for it to burn. Then it is inhaled.

If you compare that to smoking--- a cigarette actually _burns_, and during that oxidation process it'll make thousands upon thousands of variants of chemicals. And because they've been oxidized, they're more reactive.

I'm not saying vaping is safe. But I'm saying that it's obvious that it's safer than cigarettes.

You should also check out this. I am open to the idea that vaping might be _as bad_ as cigarettes, but currently the evidence shows that they're way better, and can be a good tool for quitting. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-le...

> I'm not saying vaping is safe. But I'm saying that it's obvious that it's safer than cigarettes.

Agreed. Saying something is 'safer' than something else, doesn't make the original thing 'Safe'. Vaping causes Cancer, so does Tobacco smoking. All of you are saying "Vaping is Safer because it isn't AS BAD AS smoking Tobacco". Agreed. But another way of saying is "We think Vaping is Safer because it causes Cancer in 20 years, whereas Tobacco smoking is will cause Cancer in 10 years"

That's fair.

Does vaping cause cancer in 20 years?? Or are you just postulating an example?

"mostly homogeneous racially similar people"

Arf. Arf.

I appreciate your joke but I don't think the HN populace gets the full context because there are a couple of steps that need to happen to connect the parent quote and your punchline.

Just spell it out.

  D-O-G W-H-I-S-T-L-E

I've been seeing you around HN a lot recently and I've gotta say with your -5 points and all you are winning my heart

Ha! I just noticed this. My comments don't karma whore, and I'm not interested in appeasing the whims of the mods.

It doesn't do the community much good to pull punches, if that means putting a diplomatic muzzle on valid points and opinions that contrast with a preferred norm.

It is appalling that calling out an obvious dog-whistle phrase is either not understood or unwelcome here. This is what leads to "race realism" becoming an acceptable topic in some circles.

What's misunderstood is your concept of the HN downvote.

It is neither rational, nor fair, nor explained. It materializes from thin air, lands on anyone that awakens a even but pang of discomfort in another user, and smears all words irrevocably, and dispassionately.

You might catch a downvote for being vague. You might catch a downvote for mispelling. You might catch a downvote for trying to be funny, and succeeding, but because you've offended the faceless humorless. Even an obsequeous comment will be downvoted for spinelessness.

Few honest comments actually work on HN. Almost all HN comments need to be slippery, many require a fecetious concilliatory bent.

You really can't win when commenting. Not anywhere. Someone out there will find a reason to slam you.

I am fascinated that you decided to make a new HN alias in order to articulate this point, which btw I think has a lot of merit. Making the huge assumption this is not your primary HN alias, out of curiosity, why did you decide to disassociate yourself from the thread?

I could make up reasons that would seem to bolster my merit, but the reality is that my replies were throttled under another account, lol.

Anyway, I've stopped karma-whoring. And even though I possess the capacity for downvoting under other accounts, I do not use that power.

Admittedly, it means I no longer play into the ranking algorithms, and I can't feed into any persona reputation, but the power to freely disagree, and to add voice to other people's (otherwise silent) downvotes, or contradict downvotes when I feel they're wrong, is the more valuable feature any forum can offer.

Maybe it fulfills other needs and my glandular, gutteral response to people who "are wrong on the internet" overrides the ego of being preened and revered by the community, but the way I see it someone needs to fill this niche. HN has a serious echo-chamber problem, and the prevailing wind needs some yelling into.

I appreciate the response and your efforts. I've been on HN almost 10 years and i sense it is shifting further toward an echo-chamber. You can almost predict the reaction the community (by numbers) will have based on the title or topic of a post. I suspect more and more people are picking up on this judging by comments in threads (or maybe I'm just looking for it). What I wonder is if this is reversion to the mean or has the mean shifted (perhaps as a result of changes in times or demographics). Anyway it is enjoying to watch and I am curious to see how this plays out. My only fear is that people with conflicting ideas take them somewhere else. There is no better place than HN IMHO to see constructive arguments unfold across so many topics.

Two things feed into the echo-chamber pattern, and both are chilling effects. One can be easily augmented and the other cannot.

The first is the voluntary tendency people have about providing their IRL identities. For some this is largely optional, for others, less so, for example when a celebrity is participating as themselves. Real identities means there's some skin in the game for at least some people, requiring a heavier hand in moderation. This part can only be augmented so much, and requires individual users to self censor, disengage, and conceal their own identities when posting an unpopular sentiment. Humans being what they are, this reality will never go away.

The other is the karma system, and this can be changed. And karma really is an unnatural ranking value, since one can pick up on inconsistencies after enough lurking. Whether it should change (or be changed) is arguable. If it's as harsh as it seems, and the effects are that chilling, it may just be an expression of actual human behavior. In which case, it's an early warning alarm, and an analog for what goes down in face-to-face meetings, but remains unspoken. We may not like echo-chambers, but they take shape in the real world too, in which case every social circle carries a shelf life that can probably be quantified by the manner in which this feedback loop widens and deafens its participants by jamming all signal with a noise that drowns out everything else.

I'd hope that last part isn't true (being slightly depressing as it is), and that tweaking the numeric validation could tune the ambient personality of the community's behavior, such that it doesn't drift into irrelevance. It sounds easy enough, but maybe poor execution would warp and deny certain aspects of reality, to produce yet another fiction with unintended consequences.

Anyway, I'm just gonna keep doing whatever.

I think it's rather peculiar to come to the conclusion that there is little information for other countries.

1. Using various policies, Iceland has been able to strongly reduce the amount of substance abuse in their country.

2. Other countries suffer from substance abuse as well

3. The article notes that the method is mostly data driven. This implies similar methods should apply to different countries.

How do you come to the conclusion that the information presented in the article is not applicable to other countries? Why would a racial dissimilar, larger and heterogeneous population not benefit from a data-driven approach to limit substance abuse?

I'd go the opposite way: because the populations are larger, noise has less influence on the data-driven approach and tests can be accelerated.

With a population as small as iceland's there is no such thing as anonymity. Maybe these policies would work in a small town without much population turnover? Cultural context of cultural policies is actually really important. What works in Japan might not work in Springfield. Data driven is very good though, the temptation to reclassify failure as success on such problems is extremely high, unfortunately - and I am absolutely not being critical of those who are genuinely making the attempt to improve socail conditions - it's a human failing we all have. The road to hell is paved in good intentions etc. etc.

If you're trying to argue that Iceland's population is therefore just not culturally predisposed to juvenile delinquency, underage drinking, smoking, or drug abuse, you must have missed the part where Iceland started out with high measured levels of those things, then staged interventions, and wound up with low levels of those things.

Don't forget to mention the religious diversity, where only 71% of the population belongs to the official Luthern Church of Iceland, while the heathens of the Free Luthern church in Reykjavík and Hafnarfjörður only comprise 5% of the population.

http://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/pxweb/en/Samfelag/Samfelag__menni...

This sounds like the old, worn-out argument that "we're too big and diverse to have nice things like the Nordics".

With that can't do attitude of course things will never get fixed in the US.

This argument is more palatable than the truth it masks, which is that we are unwilling to spend money and time making nice things like the Nordics do, and many wealthy people like it that way because it keeps their taxes low.

I invite all of you that hold this position to travel across the country and do in-depth qualities one studies with interviews, surveys, actual population observations and see if these very simplistic ideas still hold true. How's that for data?

I never mentioned "can't do". We cant do it the Nordic way.

End the drug war is a simple solution to all of America's drug problems. American politicians and prison-industrial-complex likes drug addicts. That is why USA has a drug problem.

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