Nine out of 10 high school students say that some classmates are using drugs and drinking during the school day, according to a recent survey.
Conducted each year by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, the survey measures situations, circumstances and factors associated with teen substance use.
The findings are “profoundly disturbing” according to Emily Feinstein, JD, senior policy analyst at the center. She said adolescent substance abuse is “America’s No. 1 public health problem.
“For millions of America’s teens, drugs and alcohol, not more advanced education, are what put the ‘high’ in the high schools they attend,” Feinstein told The Nation’s Health.
The center’s 17th annual back-to-school survey was conducted by phone between April 18 and May 17. Comprising about 1,000 randomly selected American teens ages 12–17 from a nationally representative sample, the survey’s respondents were mostly public school students.
Every year before the survey is conducted, the center holds focus groups to get a clearer picture of “what is really going on in the teen world,” getting information straight from the teens themselves, according to Feinstein
“What we found surprising this year is the extent of substance abuse going on during the school day,” Feinstein said. “The party is not just on weekends or after school, it’s during the day, on campus at schools which their parents are, by law, required to send them.”
The full report refers to schools in which drug use and drinking occur on campus during school hours as “drug infected,” a phenomenon that has significantly increased in private schools over the past year. The number of private school students who reported fellow students possessing, selling or using drugs at school jumped from 36 percent in 2011 to 54 percent in 2012.
The report does not discuss why this year saw such an increase in drug and alcohol use at schools, but social media’s growing presence has played a role, Feinstein said.
“Kids are posting pictures of themselves partying online, which encourages other teens to do the same,” she said.
According to the survey, 75 percent of teens said that seeing pictures on social networks of peers partying with alcohol or marijuana encourages other teens to want to party like that as well. Nearly half of teens surveyed said they have seen pictures on Facebook or other social networking sites of kids getting drunk, passing out, or using drugs. Among teens who have seen the pictures, 47 percent said that it seems like those pictured are having a good time.
According to Feinstein and the center’s prior research, teens who “use” during adolescence are more prone to become addicted.
“It is important for the public to understand that the earlier kids start, the earlier and more likely they are to develop addiction,” Feinstein said.
The vulnerable teen brain is still developing throughout adolescence, and if kids abstain from substance use before age 21, then they are less likely to become addicted, Feinstein said.
“Schools need to address substance use as a health problem, not a behavioral one,” Feinstein said, stressing the importance of parents in educating their children and setting a positive example. “The takeaway message is that parents need to be involved and engaged in the lives of their children, they need to be the primary ones giving messages and advice.”
The full report, “National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XVII: Teens,” is online at http://www.casacolumbia.org/templates/NewsRoom.aspx?articleid=692&zoneid=51.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
