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ALCOHOL and drugs can mess up teenagers’ entire lives, destroying their chances of benefiting from schooling and making it almost impossible to do anything very much with their future adult life.

But as President Mugabe noted yesterday, there are a large number of teenagers who take these appalling risks and it needs a combined effort of schools, parents, churches, communities and peer pressure to create a climate where just about every youth makes sensible instead of stupid decisions.

There is no single authority that will persuade all teenagers to be sensible nor is there any simple solution to the problems.

But a combined effort involving everyone should make a decisive difference, and it was this appeal for maximum involvement that the President was calling for.

Some young people want to grow up too quickly, and so start drinking or having sexual relations too early, when they are really far too young to make such decisions.

All young people want to explore the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, but they need to be guided on how to do so.

Guiding teenagers and youths is not easy, but it is not impossible.

To take one example, tobacco, a few decades ago there were very few teenagers who had not smoked a cigarette and a reasonable percentage who were well on their way to becoming dependent on tobacco.

Now it is almost impossible to find young people who smoke and, in fact, smoking is socially unacceptable among youngsters. Years of relentless education on the health and other risks have had an effect.

The same sort of campaigns are needed for alcohol and illegal drugs.

And these campaigns, like the tobacco campaigns, need to emphasise the positive, that teenagers and youths who avoid abusing alcohol and taking illicit drugs are far more likely to be in control of their lives, far more likely to achieve their ambitions, far more likely to be, in short, a successful person. Parents are in the front line.

They need to set a good example for a start, showing at the very least it is possible for an adult to enjoy the odd drink without losing control or becoming addicted.

The schools can give the background and the science as to what happens when people drink or take drugs.

Churches and communities can be very practical. Youth groups and the like can help youngsters learn to socialise without alcohol, for example, helping them move into adulthood one step at a time rather than getting out of their depth long before they are ready.

We even think universities and colleges could think about requests from student leaders to reopen campus bars, as University of Zimbabwe student leaders suggested last week, but with negotiated controls and the right environment, so young people learn in a reasonably safe atmosphere what is and is not acceptable.

In the end rules and regulations will not stop anyone from behaving badly.

What is needed is to ensure that young people know the risks, know the disasters that can befall them, and then be shown how they can take control of their lives, and remain in control.

We need to stress how much better life can be.

The President’s approach yesterday was to take this positive route and lay out, with considerable force, that there were far better futures for today’s youngsters than to be a drunk, promiscuous drug addict.

It was good advice.