Straight Goods by Dave Jacox

ARE DRUGS LOSING THEIR COOL? 

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all.

- Lyric from “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane
at the height of the sixties drug ‘revolution.’

Things have sure changed.

Once, drugs were part of the business of being young and being cool. Not that everyone was a user, but there was a kind of grudging admiration for those supposedly forward thinking and fearless souls who were smoking up or snorting up or shooting up.  It was true in your parents’ day, and it was true in your grandparents’ day.  No matter whether the subject of awe was a stoned jazz musician, an obscene comedian or a pot-smoking hippie ‘radical.’

“SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK’N ROLL.”

Sex has gotten risky, 
drugs are riskier still, 
and generally speaking, rock isn’t nearly risky enough.

Once, “S. D & R & R” was a teenage rallying cry. Today?  Well … two out of three ain’t good.  Sex has gotten risky, drugs are riskier still and generally speaking, rock isn’t nearly risky enough. And teenagers are reacting the way only teenagers seem able to do.  Instead of pointing fingers at the people who created the problems in the first place, they’re making decisions that will help them avoid making the same mistakes again.

WHAT’S NEW?

Sex is still sex, but male-female and all relationships have changed a lot … and mostly for the better.  Things like peer-support groups and youth organizations such as Students Against Drunk Driving belong this generation of young people.  Being careless with other people’s lives and futures just isn’t acceptable to teens anymore.  As for music, a rebellion against the adult controlled music business – Corporate Rock – is finally emerging and young artists with minds of their own, from Madonna to Vanilla Ice, are making themselves heard on real issues. Which brings us to drugs, and the real point of this article.

“HEY MAN… I WAS SO STONED!”

“Yeah? Far out.”

What you say and do and even what you wear say a lot about what you are.

Stop your searching for a curse before you and up in a hearse
Don’t be afraid to show you friends that you hurt inside
… If you see me getting high knock me down.

- Red Hot Chill Peppers

Sometimes it can be handy to have a ready-made wardrobe of ideas and activities to identify with even if they aren’t really your own. Clothes have always been a good identity crutch.  Another used to be the group you hung out with, but these days most teenagers have friends of all kinds so you really can’t judge a person by the company he or she keeps anymore.  Being seriously involved in some activity is also good for your identity.  Getting good at anything from basketball to training horses will help you say who you are, but it will also take some effort.

I want a new drug One that won’t make me sick One that won’t make me crash my ear Or make me feel three feet thick … One that makes me feel like I feel when I’m with you

 

Which is why drugs and alcohol have been strong competition for more active pastimes.  The simple ability to light a match or bend your elbow to raise a glass or bottle buys your way into an ‘image.’  Max rad with minimum effort.  Well, apparently teens today aren’t as lazy as they used to be because again, intoxicants just aren’t making it the way they used to as personality labels.

HERE’S THE HOOK

There’s a lot of evidence that more and more young people are making the decision to avoid drugs and alcohol.  They’re still experimenting with substances to a certain extent, but they’re also trying things that use reality as a tool for exploring the ‘inner self.’  This creates a problem for the people who sell drugs.  Because what if drugs are becoming a less acceptable way of dealing with the curiosity and pressures of adolescence?  What if teens are starting to make up their own minds about what’s right for them… and helping their friends put aside a bottle or joint to talk over the rough spots… hey, what’s a poor drug dealer to do?  Develop a new ‘hook’, is what. Such as designer drugs.  One idea behind designer drugs is to create attractive and affordable substances capable of overpowering the best intentions with a chance chemical encounter.  Even as more of us make the basic decision not to have drugs as part of our lifestyle, we may be more vulnerable than ever to the most innocent experiment.

Nobody put the crack into the pipe
Nobody made you smoke off your life
You thought that you could do dope
And still stay cool Fool
You played yourself
Ain’t nobody else’s fault

THE ESSENCE OF COOL

If drugs truly aren’t cool anymore, what is?  The over-talented and under financed ZOOT research team recently took it upon itself to find out.  Their task, and they chose to accept it, was to compile a current listing of ‘cool’ things.  You know, people, activities and objects of fun or fashion that enjoy widespread acceptance and admiration in the teenage community here in Alberta. The edited version of the meticulously logged ZOOT list looks like this:

Kurt Browning is cool. Snowboarding is cool. Getting along with your parent is cool. Being yourself and looking like yourself is cool. New experiences, especially ones that challenge you to test things you think you already know, are cool. Friends you can trust are cool. School is not especially cool, but teachers who don’t think they know it all are cool. Any combination of clothes that seem ‘personal’ and different is the apex of fashion cool.

The list goes on…

The second task facing our dedicated crew wearing the bottle-bottom glasses and white lab coats was to find the link or links between all of these cool things.  It took eight days and ten cartons of red licorice, but here’s what they finally determined:

A CURE FOR THE COMMON COOL

Things that are cool are characterized by many things, but mostly by three things:

	Cool is confident.
	Cool is new, or at least different. (‘King of the Hill" Roger McGuinn is not new, but he is different, and never boring.)
	Cool is wide-eyed, clear-headed and eager to share the excitement with friends.

 

So, if drugs currently aren’t cool, it’s not so hard to see why.  New, confident, clear-headed and social don’t exactly describe the drug experience.

HERE’S A THOUGHT

The movie, The Doors, opened recently in Alberta with a restricted rating.  Which means that technically, although the film is about a young rock band and its young audience, it can’t be seen in theatres by the people it’s supposedly about!  Or just maybe the teenagers in the movie are a breed apart from the crowd you cruise with.  That’s what we think, anyway.  We figure that Doors director Oliver Stone and the other people looking to bag a big buck from digging up Jim Morrison and his junkie pals figured that money would come in from an audience that was ‘teen’ a long time ago.  If you do see the movie (censorship notwithstanding, it’ll be out on video so you and your five-year-old sister can check it out), we’ll bet that you won’t be real impressed and that your basic reaction will be to say: “Jim… get a life.”

Purple haze all in my brain
Many things don’t seem the same I feel funny and I don’t know why
‘scuse me while I kiss the sky.

- Jimi Hendrix

What do you think? Are drugs and alcohol “cool” or “uncool” in your group?  Help us put together a Province-wide poll of substance.  Write with your thoughts and we’ll publish the most interesting responses in the next issue of ZOOT.

Plus, if we publish your opinion, you’ll receive a set of our sensational new ZOOT Postcards so you can share your opinion with teens all over the world, too.

Write: 

COOL
Zoot Capri, The Magazine
403, 304 – 8^th Avenue S.W.
Calgary, Alberta T2P 1C2