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04-09-2011 10:36 AM |
Study: Teen Drug Use Increases
Quote:
More teens are using marijuana, Ecstacy and prescription drugs, according to a study released Wednesday.
Following a decade of steady declines, teen drug and alcohol use is headed in the wrong direction, with marked increases in teen use of marijuana — from 32 percent in 2008 to 39 percent in 2010 — and Ecstacy — from 6 percent in 2008 to 10 percent in 2010, according to a study released by The Partnership at Drugfree.org and the MetLife Foundation.
The study authors say the trend shows that as underage drinking becomes more normalized among adolescents parents feel unable to respond to the negative shifts in teen drug use.
Regarding alcohol use, teen drinking is down. Of those teens who reported alcohol abuse, a majority (62 percent) said they had their first full alcoholic beverage by age 15, not including sipping or tasting alcohol.
Of those teens who reported alcohol use, one in four (25 percent), said they drank a full alcoholic beverage for the first time by age 12 or younger. Among teens who reported drinking alcohol the average age of first alcohol use was 14.
Weak perceptions of risk and a perceived “normalization” of underage drinking underlie the survey data on adolescent alcohol use.
Futher data regarding alcohol use from the study shows that:
• Almost half of teens (45 percent) reported they do not see a “great risk” in heavy daily drinking.
• Only 31 percent of teens strongly disapprove of teens and peers their age getting drunk.
• A majority of teens, seven out of 10 (73 percent), report having friends who drink alcohol at least once a week.
While the No. 1 reason teens reported using alcohol is that they think “it’s fun to drink” (60 percent), a significant number of teens reported using alcohol to deal with stress:
• One in three (32 percent) of teens said they drank “to forget their troubles.”
• Almost one in four (24 percent) said they used alcohol to help them “deal with problems at home.”
• One in five (20 percent) teens reported they drank to “deal with the pressures and stress of school.”
The survey also found that parents feel unprepared to respond to underage drinking by their children.
Almost a third of parents (28 percent) feel “there is very little parents can do to prevent their kids from trying alcohol.” One in three teens (32 percent) thinks their parents would approve if they drank beer once in a while; yet only one in 10 parents agree with teens drinking beer at a party.
The 22nd annual national study of 2,544 teens in grades 9-12 and 831 parents is nationally projectable with a +/- 3.6 percent margin of error for the teen sample and +/- 3.4 percent for the parent sample. Conducted for The Partnership at Drugfree.org and the MetLife Foundation by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications, the survey was administered in private, public and parochial schools, while the parent survey was conducted through in-home interviews by deKadt Marketing and Research.
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