The following quotation is taken from a translation of a Manual for drugs workers produced by a group of colleagues in the Czech Republic:

'In societies where the authoritarian communist regime fell not long ago the amount of risk in adolescence is increased by the following:

• society at first lived in a general ecstasy of freedom, … this was followed by disillusionment
• a decline in internalised moral standards
• successful people have a low sense of solidarity and social awareness, they are governed by the ethos of wild competitiveness and rivalry
• in comparison with the preceding "period of immobility" all people perceive a higher degree of uncertainty and have a feeling that everybody is threatened by everybody. This fact makes simple repressive reactions to all kinds of anti-social behaviour more attractive …
• with a lack of self-reflection and lots of unsolved problems of the past, these societies can become closed and hostile; racism and other kinds of xenophobia occur as vents to frustrations
• economic difficulties and lack of money for social programmes and other undertakings that do not promise direct economic profit
• little co-operation among individual state organs and between state organisations and those not directed by the state
• successful people are accused of being close to the previous regime, and engaged in malpractices, which is regrettably often true
• people with low social mobility feel powerless and are highly dependent on the state. They are characterised by a low degree of civic sensibility and lack of civil co-operation
• increasing unemployment which first affects unqualified young people entering the labour market
• the inherited education system is still governed by authoritarianism and the practice is still very far from the ideals of modern pedagogy …
• the network of child and youth organisations, which offered - despite its ideological tributes to the communist regime - a lot of leisure time activities to young people, has broken down.'

Extract from: Broža and the Collective 1999 [Koncepce a Operacni manuál]
Conception and Operation Manual. Liberec (Czech Republic): Centre for Youth