By focusing on local participation and promoting more music and sports options for students, Iceland has dried up a teenage culture of drinking and smoking.
The clock strikes 10 p.m. on a Friday night when the"Parent Patrol" enters a popular playground in suburban Reykjavik. The teens turn down the music and reach for their phones to check the time: It's ticking into curfew.
"The key to success is to create healthy communities and by that get healthy individuals," said Inga Dora Sigfusdottir, a sociology professor who founded the"Youth of Iceland" program, which now has rebranded as"Planet Youth." In 1999, when thousands of teenagers would gather in downtown Reykjavik every weekend, surveys showed 56% of Icelandic 16-year-olds drank alcohol and about as many 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.
Yet better options cost money. Local municipalities like Reykjavik have invested in sport halls, music schools and youth centers. To make the programs widely available, parents are offered a $500 annual voucher toward sports or music programs for their children.
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