Teen drug use falls again Study finds third drop in a row By CECI CONNOLLY The Washington Post -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 22. 2004 8:00AM WASHINGTON - For the third straight year, illegal drug use by teenagers declined slightly in 2004 - with the notable exceptions of inhalants, alcohol and the pain killer OxyContin, government investigators said yesterday. Since 2001, the number of high school students who reported using an illicit drug in the past month fell 17 percent to 16.1 percent this year. Teens saying they had used alcohol within the past 30 days declined 7.7 percent to 33 percent, according to the "Monitoring the Future" survey. Bush administration officials hailed the data as evidence that its massive anti-drug campaign has sunk in, especially with pre-teens. "Addiction starts early in life," said Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health. "If this is a harbinger of the future, we are really very encouraged." But he and others said enormous challenges remain as young people experiment with alcohol, newer prescription medicines and harmful fumes from household substances. "We still have a long way to go," he said. Overall, high school seniors reported using a broader array of illegal substances with more frequency. Fully 70 percent of 12th graders said they have consumed alcoholic beverages during the past year and 52 percent reported having been drunk at least once in 2004. "It is stunning the country has not caught on to this. It is so frustrating," said Wendy Hamilton, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. By her estimate, the federal government spent $1.8 billion on drug prevention, with $71 million of that targeted at alcohol. "The alcohol industry lobbied so heavily when we were trying to get the media campaign to include alcohol," she complained. Since the 2000 election cycle, the beer, wine and liquor industries have contributed more than $35 million to federal candidates, about 60 percent of it to Republicans, according to analysis by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, speculated that teens do not see the same risks in alcohol consumption as in drugs. When it comes to substances such as cocaine, heroin and even tobacco, there is overwhelming evidence linking usage to specific injuries or illnesses, she said. But alcohol is a legal product that does not necessarily cause health effects. "We are in a much stronger position to make an argument against drugs," she said. For 30 years, the federal government and the University of Michigan have tracked drug use by teens. The latest survey questioned nearly 50,000 8th, 10th and 12th graders in 400 schools nationwide. Because the results do not include teens who have dropped out, some analysts say the numbers may be slightly lower than the reality. Over the three decades, the trend line has resembled a roller coaster, with drug use spiking in the late 1970s and early 1980s, falling to a low of 10.5 percent in 1992 and rising again to a high of 20.6 percent in 1996. The annual survey collects data on a wide variety of illicit substances including cocaine, mar1juana, amphetamines, heroin, alcohol and tobacco. The greatest successes have come with younger teens. Cigarette smoking among 8th graders, for instance, has been cut almost in half over the past decade, and alcohol use has steadily declined in that age group. But there was a noticeable uptick in inhalant use by younger teens, perhaps because "these products are inexpensive, legal and easy to obtain," according to the survey. These include glues, paint thinner, nail polish remover, gasoline and shoe polish. "Even a single session of repeated inhalant abuse can disrupt heart rhythms and cause death from cardiac arrest," said Volkow. Similarly, the percentage of teens abusing OxyContin remains relatively small - about 5 percent - but the number has inched upward and "considering the addictive potential of this drug ... we think that these are disturbingly high rates," said the University of Michigan's Lloyd Johnston. In the face of budget cuts by Congress, Director of National Drug Control Policy John Walters warned that usage will almost certainly spike again if parents, teachers and political leaders become complacent. "The challenge before us is to follow through," he said. ------ End of article By CECI CONNOLLY The Washington Post http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041222/REPOSITORY/412220339/1013/NEWS03
So, illegal drug use declined slightly for the third straight year, huh? They did mention the caveat about use of inhalants and Oxycontin (both far more dangerous than say, mar1juana) that goes to show that there is a "balloon effect" with drug use. If teens lower their use of one drug, they increase their use of other drugs. I would not tout a 16.1% rate of teens using illegal drugs as a success, particularly when they point out later in the article that drug use has been a... (hold on, let me quote this) So, we actually had significantly lower teen drug use twelve years ago than we do now and they are using these numbers to talk about "success?" This statement (the first one) is absolutely true. Addiction starts early in life. This is why it is such a travesty that over half of our young people try illegal drugs before they leave high school. They usually try pot, see that the hype over its dangers have been overblown, and they assume that authority figures are lying about the rest of them as well. I would be more encouraged if we had rates of teen drug use like those in Holland, where their rates are about half what we see here. A long way to go is right. Every time we tighten down on one drug, others spring up and become more popular. Personally, I would MUCH rather that if my son WERE to choose to use drugs as a young person, that he use mar1juana rather than sniffing glue or paint thinner. Any system of regulation that I would create would include alcohol and would more closely control its sales as well. Kids don't need to be getting alcohol any more than they need to be getting illegal drugs. Actually, they are not. Alcohol causes nearly as many health issues as cocaine and heroin and FAR more than mar1juana, particularly for kids. This is amazing that they would actually try to say that alcohol "does not necessarily cause health effects." And in a regulated system, we would know down to minute detail how much of each drug was used in this country every year. In addition, with the removal of the stigma of criminality, people would be more open to accurately reporting their drug use and we might actually get some numbers that are accurate rather than the cherry-picked and sanitized numbers we see now. Oddly enough, the two that they specifically mentioned were the two regulated drugs. Those reductions are mostly due to the "We Card" programs and the like which started in the 1990's. They have been tremendously successful in reducing our young people's access to alcohol and tobacco and serve to show how much progress we could make in a regulated market. And unfortunately, inhalants are FAR more dangerous than even heroin and cocaine. Good job Drug War, you have taken kids that want to smoke pot and turned them on to huffing glue. The "challenge" is to "follow through" with a policy that has not significantly reduced drug use by minors or adults, has caused drug prices to fall to all time lows, and has caused purity to increase dramatically. Nice try, rookie.
Any mention on whether the increasing poverty rate among families with teenagers/children had anything to do with the decrease? It's hard to buy stuff to get giddy when you're broke, so you might take to rummaging around under the kitchen sink.
