Facts That Every Parent Should Know About Drug Use
- The drug teens are most likely to use and abuse is alcohol.
- Today’s marijuana is 10-20 times stronger than the marijuana used in the 1960s.
- Adolescents become addicted to alcohol in only 6-18 months: for adults this usually takes 5-15 years.
- Of the 76 percent of high school students who have used tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, or cocaine, one in five meet the medical criteria for addiction. Elementary age children who have learning or behavioral problems that go unresolved are at a statistically greater risk of alcohol/drug problems later on. Children of alcoholics have a four-to-ten times greater risk of becoming alcoholics than children of non-alcoholics.
- Typical American college students spend more on beer than they do on textbooks, although the majority of them cannot drink legally.
- Thirty-four percent of high school students binge drink (have five or more drinks of alcohol in a row).
- Teen tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana users are at least twice as likely as nonusers to have poor grades. Even more alarming, teen marijuana users are about twice as likely as nonusers to drop out of high school.
- Forty-five percent of teens said they got their alcohol from family or at home.
- Among youth who are 12 to 17 years old, 7.4 percent reported a non-medical use of prescription medications in the past year.
- According to the 2011 Monitoring the Future survey, prescriptions and overthe-counter drugs are among the most commonly abused drugs by 12th graders, after alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco. Youth who abuse prescription medications are also more likely to report use of other drugs.
- Eighty percent of high school students surveyed said that their parents’ concerns, opinions, or expectations influence if and how much they smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or use drugs.