Healthier Alternatives and Natural Highs: The Success of the Icelandic Model
Over the past two decades, Iceland has seen teenage smoking, drinking and drug use dramatically decrease. This is partly because of state-funded initiatives which look to promote healthier alternatives, or ‘natural highs’, such as sport, family-orientated activities and cultural provisions.
Despite the clear benefits of such nationally coordinated programmes, some reports suggest that the implementation of something similar in other Western countries is unlikely. Reasons for this include a mentality of short-termism, as is the case in the UK and the US, which flies in the face of the long-term approach of the Icelandic model. Another factor could be a more acute public wariness regarding the state’s reach, or the extent to which governments should be allowed to interfere in the lives of their citizens.
