Health and Safety - Drugs, Alcohol, And Smoking

Drug Use

Few factors negatively influence the health and well-being of young people more than the use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. Monitoring the Future (MTF), a long-term study on the use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, annually surveys eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders on their use of these substances. According to the institute's Overview of Key Findings 2003, the percentage of high school students who have ever tried any illicit drug either remained steady or decreased slightly from the mid-1990s to 2003. This plateau followed sharp increases during the early 1990s. The survey showed a decrease in the use of LSD, tranquilizers, amphetamines, and methamphetamines in 2002 and 2003. The use of heroin, other narcotics, crack, cocaine, and hallucinogens other than LSD remained steady. Only inhalants showed signs of increasing use, and then only among eighth graders. Still, half (51%) of American youths have tried an illicit drug by the time they leave high school.

Each year MTF asks twelfth graders, "How much do you think people risk harming themselves by using the following drugs?" The results show that from 1975 to 2003 the majority of students consistently perceived cocaine, LSD, and heroin as high-risk drugs in terms of overdose, addiction, and death. According to the MTF report in 2004, marijuana remained the only drug that barely half of all twelfth graders (54.9%) surveyed in 2003 believed had high-risk factors if used regularly. Between 1975 and 2003 83–90% of high school seniors reported that they could easily obtain marijuana, more than any other drug.

Table 5.15 shows reported drug and alcohol use by twelfth graders in 2003, according to the MTF. Alcohol remained teenagers' drug of choice; 70.1% of high school seniors had used alcohol in the twelve months prior to the survey and 47.5% had used alcohol in the prior thirty days. Marijuana was a distant second; 34.9% of twelfth graders had used marijuana in the prior twelve months and 21.2% had used it in the prior thirty days. The 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 40.2% of high school students reported they had tried marijuana, and 22.4% reported they had used it at least once in the thirty days before the survey. (See Table 5.16.)

Alcohol Use Still High

Alcohol use remains high among high school students. Although there was some decline in drinking among students in the 1980s, it remained generally stable among young people between 1993 and 2003.

The 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that nationwide 74.9% of all high school students had had at least one alcoholic drink in their lifetime, 44.9% had taken a drink in the thirty days prior to the survey, and 28.3% had had five or more drinks on one occasion at least once in the thirty days prior to the survey. (See Table 5.16.) African-American youth were less likely than

TABLE 5.15

either white or Hispanic high schoolers to have ever had a drink, to have had a drink in the previous thirty days, or to engage in episodic heavy drinking.

TEENAGE DRINKING AND DRIVING. According to Determine Why There Are Fewer Young Alcohol-Impaired Drivers by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (September 2001), traffic fatalities linked to teenage drinking fell from 1982 to 1993 and remained fairly steady from 1993 to 1998. This decline was due in large part to stricter enforcement of drinking age laws and driving while intoxicated (DWI) or driving under the influence (DUI) laws. Motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death among fifteen- to twenty-year-olds in 2002. In that year 24% of all young drivers ages fifteen to twenty who were killed in crashes were intoxicated.

The 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that in the month before the survey, 12.1% of students reported they had driven a vehicle after drinking alcohol. (See Table 5.17.) Males (15%) were more likely than females (8.9%) to drive after drinking. Another 30.2% admitted they had ridden with a driver who had been drinking. Females were slightly more likely to ride with a driver who had been drinking (31.1%) than were males (29.2%).

Tobacco

Most states prohibit the sale of cigarettes to anyone under eighteen but the laws are often ignored and may carry no penalties for youths who buy cigarettes or smoke in public. According to the American Lung Association, nearly six thousand children start smoking each day, and 4.5 million adolescents are smokers. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey reported that in 2003

TABLE 5.16

TABLE 5.17

21.9% of high school students had smoked at least one cigarette in the month prior to the survey and 9.7% had smoked at least twenty days in the past month. (See Table 5.18.) The percentage of female and male heavy smokers was almost equal: 2.4% of female adolescents and 3.6% of male adolescents smoked more than ten cigarettes per day.

Teens say they smoke for a variety of reasons—they "just like it," "it's a social thing," and many young women who are worried about their weight report that they smoke because "it burns calories." Many of them report they have seen their parents smoke. A 1995 Los Angeles study, "The Influence of Parental Smoking on Youth Smoking: Is the Recent Downplaying Justified?" by Mike Males of the University of California at Irvine, found that parental smoking is a significant influence on youth smoking, especially among boys and among youth who began smoking at a young age.

SMOKELESS TOBACCO. Smokeless tobacco use—chewing tobacco, snuff, or dip—among adolescents is a predominantly white male activity, according to the 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Of high school students, 11% of males and 2.2% of females had used smokeless tobacco at least once in the thirty days preceding the survey; 7.6% of white and 3% of African-American students had used smokeless tobacco in that time. White male students had the highest proportion of users (13.3%); only 4.1% of African-American males and 6.1% of Hispanic males used smokeless tobacco.

SECONDHAND SMOKE AND CHILDREN. The Environmental Protection Agency reported that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is a major hazard for children, whose respiratory, immune, and other systems are not as well developed as those of adults. According to the EPA's Web site, secondhand or passive smoke—smoke produced by other people's cigarettes—increases the number of attacks and severity of symptoms in children with asthma and can even cause asthma in preschool-age children.

TABLE 5.18

According to the agency, secondhand smoke causes between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections each year in children under eighteen months of age, and those infections result in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year. Passive smoking can also cause middle-ear disease and reduction in lung function in children, and is considered a risk factor in SIDS. The 2000 National Youth Tobacco Survey, a survey of more than 35,000 students in grades six through twelve conducted by the American Legacy Foundation, found that 42.1% of the students surveyed lived in homes where others smoked, and 69.7% were exposed to others who smoked outside the home.

"Not My Kid"

Recent surveys show that parental denial of their children's substance use is rampant among baby boomer parents. According to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (Partnership Attitude Tracking Study: Parents, 2002), teens reported smoking marijuana three times more often than their parents reported they had. Almost all parents surveyed (91%) said they had talked to their children about the dangers of drugs. About half of parents (48%) agreed with the statement, "My child and I regularly sit down together and have open discussions about important issues like drugs," but only 19% of teens agreed. By 2003 the percentage of teens who reported their parents frequently talked to them about the risks of drugs decreased further.

Experts contend the key for parents who want to prevent their children's experimentation from turning into abuse is to stop sending ambivalent messages about drug use and not to abuse substances themselves. Nonetheless, even if parents strongly oppose drugs, do not abuse them, and talk to their child about the danger of drug abuse, children may still choose to use drugs.