冰岛通过宵禁、青年中心减少青少年饮酒

Iceland Cuts Teen Drinking with Curfews, Youth Centers

Iceland is successfully treating a crisis¹ in teenage drinking. The island nation has one of the lowest rates of teen substance abuse² in Europe.

How did Iceland do it?

The country combined local involvement and an increase in music and sports activities for students. The actions have helped shrink³ a teen culture of smoking and drinking.

One of these actions was the establishment⁴ of curfews for teenagers. Now children under 12 are not allowed to be outside after 8 p.m. without parents and those 13 to 16 not past 10 p.m. Over summer, when school is out, the curfew is two hours later.

Parents are involved in enforcing⁵ the curfew: Every weekend across Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, they take a two-hour early nighttime walk around their neighborhood. These “parent patrols” visit teen “hangouts”— places where young people like to meet and spend time together.

“We tell the kids if they are out too late, polite and nice, and then they go home,” said Heidar Atlason, a long-time member of the patrol⁶ group.

Reykjavik Mayor⁷ Dagur B. Eggertsson said the Icelandic plan “is all about” people giving teens better choices than substance abuse. He believes the large mix of activities that now keeps students busy and interested has very much changed the country’s youth culture.

However, better options cost money. Local areas like Reykjavik have invested⁸ in music schools as well as sports and youth centers. To make the programs widely available, parents are offered $500 every year for sports or music programs for their children.

Other countries are paying attention. The Icelandic Centre for Social Research and Analysis has been running the youth project for the past twenty years. The center says it now advises 100 communities in 23 countries, from Finland to Chile, on how to cut teen substance abuse.

“The key to success is to create healthy communities and by that get healthy individuals,” said Inga Dora Sigfusdottir. She is a sociology⁹ professor who started the “Youth of Iceland” program, which now has been renamed “Planet Youth.”

The secret, she says, is to keep young people busy and parents involved without talking much about drugs or alcohol¹⁰.

In 1999, studies showed that 56 percent of Icelandic 16-year-olds drank alcohol. A similar number had tried smoking. Years later, Iceland has the lowest rates for drinking and smoking among the 35 countries measured in the 2015 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs.

On average, 80 percent of European 16-year-olds have tasted alcohol at least once, compared with 35 percent in Iceland, the only country where more than half of those students never drink alcohol. Denmark — another wealthy Northern European country — has the highest rates of teen drinking, along with Greece, Hungary and the Czech Republic, where more than 90 percent have consumed¹¹ alcohol.

Iceland’s youth are not without troubles. Today’s news stories say rates for anxiety and possible depression have never been higher among Icelandic teenagers. This is especially true for girls, where the rate has doubled in the past ten years. Vaping has replaced tobacco use. About 40 percent of Icelandic 16-year-olds have tried the electronic cigarettes.

I’m Anne Ball.

Words in This Story

polite – adj. having or showing good manners or respect for other people

option – n. the opportunity or ability to choose something or to choose between two or more things

anxiety – n. fear or nervousness about what might happen

depression – n. a state of feeling sad

vaping – n. the action or practice of inhaling and exhaling the vapor produced by an electronic cigarette or similar device

1 crisis   

n.危机，危急关头，决定性时刻，关键阶段

参考例句：

• He had proved that he could be relied on in a crisis.他已表明，在紧要关头他是可以信赖的。
• The topic today centers about the crisis in the Middle East.今天课题的中心是中东危机。

2 abuse   

vt.滥用；辱骂；诋毁；n.滥用；恶习；弊端

参考例句：

• You can't make personal abuse on her.你不可对她进行人身攻击。
• She screamed abuse at me.她尖声责备我。

3 shrink   

n.收缩，萎缩；vi.收缩，退缩，萎缩；vt.使收缩

参考例句：

• Washing wool in hot water will shrink it.在热水中洗毛织品会使其缩水。
• This cloth won't shrink when it's washed.这种布下水不缩。

4 establishment   

n.建立，确立，确定；企业，机构；当权人物

参考例句：

• With the establishment of major new markets, the economy is thriving.随着重大新市场的建立，经济越来越兴旺。
• The establishment of the business took several years.创办这个公司花了好几年时间。

5 enforcing   

v.实施( enforce的现在分词 )；执行；强迫；强制执行

参考例句：

• The flower structure in one tree was different, enforcing cleistogamy. 同一株树上的花结构不同，因而闭花受精是强制实现的。 来自辞典例句
• The house had been cleared of every object enforcing the remembrance. 这座房子里能勾起人们记忆的所有物件均被消除了。 来自辞典例句

6 patrol   

v.巡逻，巡查；n.巡逻，巡查，巡逻队

参考例句：

• They attacked two soldiers on patrol.他们袭击了两名正在巡逻的士兵。
• Policemen patrol the streets.警察在街上巡逻。

7 mayor   

n.市长

参考例句：

• The new mayor said he would clean the city up.新市长说，他要整顿本市。
• The mayor hurried into his office,brushing off the reporters.市长赶快走进办公室，拒不接见记者。

8 invested   

v.投资，花费( invest的过去式和过去分词 )；授予；（把资金）投入；投入（时间、精力等）

参考例句：

• The money will be invested in managed funds. 这笔钱将投资于管理基金。
• He invested his lawyer with complete power to act for him. 他让律师全权代办。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 sociology   

n.社会学，社会关系学，群落生态学

参考例句：

• He is studying sociology.他正研究社会学。
• A pioneer of legal sociology in Germany was Max Weber.德国法律社会学的先驱是马克斯·韦伯。

10 alcohol   

n.酒精，乙醇；含酒精的饮料

参考例句：

• The law forbids shops to sell alcohol to minors.法律禁止商店向未成年者出售含酒精的饮料。
• The alcohol is industrial.这些酒精是供工业用的。

11 consumed   

v.消耗( consume的过去式和过去分词 )；烧毁；大吃；使充满（强烈的感情）

参考例句：

• Arguing about details consumed many hours of the committee's valuable time. 争论细节问题耗费了委员会数小时宝贵的时间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The fire had consumed half the forest away before it was stopped. 大火在熄灭之前毁掉了树林的一半。 来自《简明英汉词典》