Drugs Abroad: Drugs Information for Holiday Clubbers.

Juliet Earp

Health Development Agency, Trevelyan House, 30 Great Peter Street, London, SW1P 2HW

Phone no: +44 (0)204 7222 5300

The Health Education Authority (HEA) is an organisation in England that runs a wide variety of health promotion campaigns. Drug information booklets have been developed for clubbers on holiday abroad. It will be discussed how they were developed, what was learned and how it is best to get that message across, with some recommendations for future literature.

The aim of the "Drugs Abroad" campaign was purely and simply communication led. As far as we were aware, there was no similar information that was widely available for clubbers going on holiday abroad. We wanted to be seen as a niche to reach clubbers who are at high risk, to remind them not only about the risks of taking drugs abroad, but also those of skin cancer, safe sex and alcohol. The HEA works with all government departments involved with drugs. That means liaising with the Home Office which is responsible for law; Customs and Excise who are responsible for monitoring drugs coming into the country; the Department of Education and Employment who are responsible for drugs education in schools; the UK Anti-Drugs Coordinating Unit; and the Department of Health Liaison Director. We wanted to develop an attractive booklet not just for clubs abroad but to attract partners such as tour operators. It had to be an attractive booklet for them to be prepared to distribute it as well as for other opinion-formers such as editors of magazines and parents. We also wanted to provide a resource for local agencies.

Development

The process we had to go through was quite formal because we are a government agency. We always have to develop what we call prototypes for any type of drugs work, and we came up with two prototypes with the exact same content but different front covers. This gave us something to work on and to fine tune so that could get the right message across in the right way to our target audience. Then we needed to pre-test the prototype, which is effectively market research with our target audience. We also tested it with opinion-formers and partners, and once we had taken on board what those people said, we needed to redesign it. When this was done and we were happy with our final product, it was sent to the Government Minister for Public Health for approval.

The target audience consisted of 16-24 year old recreational drug users for whom taking drugs was a central part of their holiday, and whose drug use would increase while they were abroad. Due to the fact that drug use was common place, they almost forgot about the risks of using drugs and were under the impression that other countries condoned drug use simply because drugs were widely available. A lot of the group were surprised when they realised some of the penalties that these countries have for being involved in illegal drug use, especially if they were using drugs for the first time on holiday. Ecstasy and cannabis seem to be the drugs most commonly used. Cocaine seemed to be a ‘special occasions’ drug that they used in a holiday setting.

The prototype booklet was approved by the target group. They said it would not make them change their behaviour but was a useful learning journal to remind people of the risks that are involved. It was also welcomed by parents and our partners: tour operators, magazine editors and other opinion-formers.

Presentation

There was a learning process involved in developing the three front covers. The main image focused on people going on holiday with romantic couple type images. However, people actually wanted images of people having fun, drinking shots and dancing in nightclubs. Also the baseball cap is passé and not part of the scene anymore so they went for a much stronger icon on the front cover. One of the first double spreads that we did was a great picture that they all related to. However, the text was far too dense and they felt they had to read it from start to finish. What they wanted was something with bullet points, nuggets of information that they could dive into and pull little bits out from because they were never going to read it from start to finish. They approved of the good use of colour, good group shots, nuggets of information, tables, clear headings and use of space.

It is fair to say that the original text was a mishmash of a factual information-led approach and an attempt to speak in young peoples’ language. The language of young people, however, varies across England and we cannot possibly hope to keep up with changes in youth culture. We therefore opted for an information-led factual approach. We were also advised to include information that clubbers did not know, as people who use recreational drugs know a lot about the risks of using drugs. They were fascinated about the risks that they did not know about and what the British Consul can and cannot do. They were shocked at how little the British Consul can actually do for them when they are abroad.

Context

We focused on the law, the penalties and the unfamiliar environment in a foreign setting on the first two or three pages. As a change to our first booklet we put drug information at the back of the booklet as drug users are very knowledgeable. In short, simple language we wrote of the risks, the effects, and gave reminders. Finally, as requested by the holiday industry who said that alcohol is a much bigger problem in their lives than drugs, we combined information about drugs and alcohol. Tables showed nice distinct simple information. One could read up about any of the drugs, including information about drugs and alcohol together, really quickly and simply.

All of the paragraphs consisted of snippets of information that people could take away. They did not have to read the whole page. The British Consul and what they can and cannot do was one of the pieces that was most commented on. Short paragraphs of real case studies gave people an idea of what penalties they might face for drug use abroad. We also reduced the ‘sun safe’ and sex advice as people told us that it did not really fit well into the drugs context, so the sex advice at the back of the leaflet was a lot shorter. This included information which was not known by the group such as sun-cream can damage condoms and that it is better not to buy condoms abroad unless they are BSI kite-marked; in Britain you know exactly what the standard of condom is that you buy but you do not know what standard you are buying abroad. As for our safety advice, there is just one paragraph on the first two pages about not falling asleep in the sun after a hard night-out as you will get sunburned. We have got just one case study of cocaine and it was mentioned in the booklet the first time around and also included in this one.

The booklet needed to be good enough for people to keep; we did not want someone to read it and then just throw it in the bin. The final page needed to be worked on so that people didn’t keep it just to put in their holiday details, flight details, passport number and so on. It is because of the design changes that we developed quite a mediocre product into something really quite good. It was approved by the government and was distributed in summer 1999.

Distribution

There was a dilemma over whether to distribute the booklet in England or abroad and how to do so at the right time. For lots of reasons tour operators cannot give out the booklets at the time when people are receptive to this information which is when they are possibly preparing to go on holiday. People did say, however, that they would have read this information when they had received their tickets a couple of weeks before their holiday. Therefore we decided to adopt a two-prong approach by targeting people in England and then abroad.

In England we distributed ‘flying packs’. Quite a lot of clubbers get ‘flying packs’ when they come out of a nightclub and they include promotional literature about other events happening in their area, festivals and other products that they can buy. We also distributed information in England’s two main clubbing magazines, ‘Mixmag’ and ‘DJ’. We made sure that we coincided with their Ibiza specials issues so that people interested in clubbing holidays could keep them, and we also made some copies available for drug agencies to use in England.

To distribute abroad, we worked very closely with the two main holiday operators, ‘Club 18 to 30’ and ‘Thompson’, and we were quite pleased that they wanted to be a part of it. They felt it was their responsibility to distribute this to their customers or that their customers had a right to this kind of information. We printed booklets that were sent to warehouses in England for them to send to and distribute in Ibiza and the other holiday islands. ‘Club 18 to 30’ chose to distribute the booklets through a promotional pack that all their holiday-makers received when they arrived on the island. ‘Thompson’ left it to the discretion of their holiday reps to either give them out at break-out sessions that people might attend when they arrive or leave them in their rooms or pigeon holes. They were also put in one of the magazines abroad called ‘The Islander’ which is distributed throughout the summer period in Ibiza. The British Consul wanted the booklets since there does not seem to be any other information available for people once they get into trouble, albeit this is a bit too late, but at least people have something to explain what the process is once they are seeking help.

There were half a million booklets printed and divided among tour operators, magazine inserts, drug agencies, local agencies and fly-packs. We also gave some to nightclubs in England at a cost of £70,000. Broken down that is about £20,000 on research, £20,000 for printing and £10,000 for design and other smaller costs. As for the future there is a need for this kind of information abroad because it targets the groups that are going to be using drugs and they need a bit of a memory jolt. There is still a lot of information that is not known. People might have been before but it is still a strange environment and a different country that works in different ways: in terms of the emergency services that are available; how people respond to drug and alcohol use; and the pubs and clubs which are always changing.

There are different themes in pubs and clubs in terms of development and resources. Information always needs to be updated to ensure that we stay in touch with the users’ culture and this is quite difficult for a government organisation, but we can try our best to change according to drug trends and so on. It could be better. Perhaps giving information about party clubs in Ibiza in summer is a reason for people to keep it and a reason for the booklet to actually get sponsorship from a local club that is distributing it or who are paying for a page. The distribution system needs to be developed for people to have the information when they actually want it: when they are preparing for that holiday abroad. Research in the club group should be continued so that we keep pace with them and keep the design and the text in a way that gets our message across. That is the key to developing good communication of resources

In 2000 the role of the ‘Health Education Authority’ will be changed to a ‘Health Development Agency’. We are not going to be doing as much direct public education in England, but might possibly provide an opportunity for another organisation who do take on ‘Drugs Abroad’ to give out their own kind of leaflet.

Feedback

In terms of getting back in touch with the people from abroad, to get feedback on the work we are doing, the only difficulty for us is quite often that when the research is done, it is clearly indicated that it is not one of our core materials. We do not have the money to keep on doing more research which I think is a real shame. With money we could develop the booklet and determine whether there is still a need for it and whether we should modify it, say making it five pages instead of four or whatever.

Unfortunately we do not tend to get the results, whether they are good or bad. We tend to pick up on things which we think should be promoted for health and safety reasons. If you get some response, it then gives you some idea of how to look for future funding to upgrade and change the booklet rather than saying it is done and final. As we know, trends change year by year, month by month, and if that booklet is still around in five years time, it is questionable whether or not it is worth the paper it is written on, in which case do we look at getting money again and upgrading it? I think that is an important question. Money is an issue if we are to produce the booklet again and we would need to.

If our initial research had found that people thought it was a waste of time and would not read it, we would not have published it. However, people said they thought it could be quite useful, even if it was not going to change their behaviour. So we did publish it, but we know a piece of literature is not going to change society’s behaviour. You cannot possibly keep up with every club and every drug agency in England. Therefore, what we have to do is to make sure there are several guides available for drug agencies to publicise the relevant information through press releases, etc, to their local media. In this way, the drugs agencies are made aware that this resource is available and can therefore use it to disseminate important information in the same way that we did.