Teenage Drug Abuse

Teenage drug abuse has been a concern for decades. Despite repeated studies and suggested solutions, no one has discovered the key to reversing the trend. While some drugs decline in popularity, new ones appear to take their place.

Richard A. Friedman, M.D. reported in the April 6, 2006 New England Journal of Medicine that the trend is away from street drugs like cocaine, marijuana and heroin and toward prescription medications. He used data gleaned from the Monitoring the Future Survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. They annually survey about 50,000 students in 400 public and private secondary schools in the United States.

Since 1989, amphetamines have maintained a steady usage rate of around 10% while narcotics (morphine, hydrocodone, etc.) have climbed from 4% to 6% in the same period. Add to this the 5% bounce produced by recent use of the narcotic OxyContin and the stimulant Ritalin and these statistics become alarming. Sedative, barbiturate and tranquilizer abuse have risen in incidence from 4% in 1989 to 6% in 2005. These numbers do not include the still significant number of street drug users or those who abuse alcohol.

There is another issue with these statistics. The students interviewed for this report are still attending school. How about all those who have dropped out? Many, if not most of those are likely using drugs and would skew these figures remarkably.

So, why are kids moving away from street drugs and abusing prescription drugs? Dr. Friedman speculates that teens think they are safer. They are also easy to obtain off the internet or by stealing them from parents.