When it comes to prevention of substance use in our “tween” population, turning kids on to ‘thought control’ may just be the answer to getting them to say no, Medical News Today reports.

New research published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, co-led by professors Roisin O’Connor of Concordia University and Craig Colder of State University of New York at Buffalo, has found that around the” tween-age” years, youth are decidedly ambivalent toward cigarettes and alcohol. It seems that the youngsters have both positive and negative associations with these harmful substances and have yet to decide one way or the other. Because they are especially susceptible to social influences, media portrayals of drug use and peer pressure become strong allies of substance use around these formative years.

“Initiation and escalation of alcohol and cigarette use occurring during late childhood and adolescence makes this an important developmental period to examine precursors of substance use,” O’Connor said. “We conducted this study to have a better understanding of what puts this group at risk for initiating substance use so we can be more proactive with prevention.”

The study showed that at the impulsive, automatic level, these kids thought these substances were bad but they were easily able to overcome these biases and think of them as good when asked to place them with positive words. O’Connor explains that “this suggests that this age group may be somewhat ambivalent about drinking and smoking. We need to be concerned when kids are ambivalent because this is when they may be more easily swayed by social influences.”

According to O’Connor, drinking and smoking among this age group is influenced by both impulsive (acting without thinking), and controlled (weighing the pros against the cons) decisional processes. With this study, both processes were therefore examined to best understand the risk for initiating substance use.

To do this, close to 400 children between the ages of 10 and 12 participated in a computer-based test that involved targeted tasks. The tweens were asked to place pictures of cigarettes and alcohol with negative or positive words. The correct categorization of some trials, for example, involved placing pictures of alcohol with a positive word in one category and placing pictures of alcohol with negative words in another category.

The next step in the study is to look at kids over a longer period of time. The hypothesis from the research is that as tweens begin to use these substances there will be an apparent weakening in their negative biases toward drinking and smoking. The desire will eventually outweigh the costs. It is also expected that they will continue to easily outweigh the pros relative to the cons related to substance use.

O’Connor said researchers would like to continue to track the youth, who, he said, know that drugs are inherently bad.

“The problem is the likelihood of external pressures that are pushing them past their ambivalence so that they use. In a school curriculum format I see helping kids deal with their ambivalence in the moment when faced with the choice to use or not use substances,” O’Connor concluded.

Source:www.cadca.org 15th March 2012

Adolescents’ use of marijuana may increase the risk of heroin addiction later in life, a new study suggests. Researchers say the work adds to “overwhelming” evidence that people under 21 should not use marijuana because of the risk of damaging the developing brain.

The idea that smoking cannabis increases the user’s chance of going on to take harder drugs such as heroin is highly contentious. Some dub cannabis a “gateway” drug, arguing that peer pressure and exposure to drug dealers will tempt users to escalate their drug use. Others insist that smoking cannabis is unrelated to further drug use.

Now research in rats suggests that using marijuana reduces future sensitivity to opioids, which makes people more vulnerable to heroin addiction later in life. It does so by altering the brain chemistry of marijuana users, say the researchers.

“Adolescents in particular should never take cannabis – it’s far too risky because the brain areas essential for behaviour and cognitive functioning are still developing and are very sensitive to drug exposure,” says Jasmin Hurd, who led the study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.
But Hurd acknowledges that most people who use cannabis begin in their teens. A recent survey reported that as many as 20% of 16-year-olds in the US and Europe had illegally used cannabis in the previous month.

“Teenage” rats

In order to explore how the adolescent use of cannabis affects later drug use, Hurd and colleagues set up an experiment in rats aimed to mirror human use as closely as possible.

In the first part of the trial, six “teenage” rats were given a small dose of THC – the active chemical in cannabis – every three days between the ages of 28 and 49 days, which is the equivalent of human ages 12 to 18. The amount of THC given was roughly equivalent to a human smoking one joint every three days, Hurd explains. A control group of six rats did not receive THC.

One week after the first part was completed, catheters were inserted in all 12 of the adult rats and they were able to self-administer heroin by pushing a lever.
“At first, all the rats behaved the same and began to self-administer heroin frequently,” says Hurd. “But after a while, they stabilised their daily intake at a certain level. We saw that the ones that had been on THC as teenagers stabilised their intake at a much higher level than the others – they appeared to be less sensitive to the effects of heroin. And this continued throughout their lives.”

Hurd says reduced sensitivity to the heroin means the rats take larger doses, which has been shown to increase the risk of addiction.

Drug memory

The researchers then examined specific brain cells in the rats, including the opioid and cannabinoid receptors. They found that the rats that had been given THC during adolescence had a significantly altered opioid system in the area associated with reward and positive emotions. This is also the area linked to addiction.

“These are very specific changes and they are long-lasting, so the brain may ‘remember’ past cannabis experimentation and be vulnerable to harder drugs later in life,” Hurd says.
Neurologist Jim van Os, a cannabis expert at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told New Scientist the research was a welcome addition to our understanding of how cannabis affects the adolescent brain.

“The issue of cross-sensitisation of cannabis/opioid receptors has been a controversial one, but these findings show the drug’s damaging effects on the reward structures of the brain,” van Oshe says. “There is now overwhelming evidence that nobody in the brain’s developmental stage – under the age of 21 – should use cannabis.”

Source: On line edition of Neuropsychopharmacology. Reported in NewScientist.com July 2006

• Young people in the UK have by far the most positive expectations of alcohol in Europe and are least likely to feel that it might cause them harm.
• Exposure to alcohol marketing increases the likelihood that young people will start to use alcohol and the amount they consume.
• The alcohol industry spends £800 million on marketing in the UK annually
• A spends £153 encouraging drinking per £1 contributed to Drinkaware – the industry led alcohol information organisation charged with promoting sensible drinking.
• Underage drinkers consume approximately the equivalent of 6.9 million pints of beer or 1.7 million bottles each week
• 630,000 11- to 17-year-olds drink twice or more each week.
• Between 2002 and 2009 – 92,220 under-18s were admitted to hospital in England for alcohol-related conditions- over 36 children or young people each day.
• Under-18s alcohol-related hospital admissions increased by 32% between 2002 and 2007.
• The latest European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs reported that in the UK 26% of 11-15 year-olds reported suffering an accident or injury because of their drinking, the highest percentage in Europe.
• Although cases of dependence amongst underage drinkers are rare, in 2008/9 – 8,799 younger people accessed treatment for alcohol up from 4,886 in 2005/6.

Source:www.alcoholconcern.org.uk Nov.2011

Position Statement – December 2011

The flawed proposition of drug legalisation

Various well funded pressure groups have mounted campaigns to overturn the United Nations Conventions on drugs. These groups claim that society should accept the fact of drugs as a problem that will remain and, therefore, should be managed in a way that would enable millions of people to take advantage of an alleged ‘legal right’ to use drugs of their choice.

It is important to note that international law makes a distinction between “hard law” and “soft law.” Hard law is legally binding upon the States. Soft law is not binding. UN Conventions, such as the Conventions on Drugs, are considered hard law and must be upheld by the countries that have ratified the UN Drug Conventions.

International narcotics legislation is mainly made up of the three UN Conventions from 1961 (Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs), 1971 (Convention on Psychotropic Substances), and 1988 (Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances):

• The 1961 Convention sets out that “the possession, use, trade in, distribution,import, export, manufacture and the production of drugs is exclusively limited to medical and scientific purposes”. Penal cooperation is to be established so as to ensure that drugs are only used licitly (for prescribed medical purposes).

• The 1971 Convention resembles closely the 1961 Convention, whilst
establishing an international control system for Psychotropic Substances.

• The 1988 Convention reflects the response of the international community to increasing illicit cultivation, production, manufacture, and trafficking activities. International narcotics legislation draws a line between licit (medical) and illicit (non-medical) use, and sets out measures for prevention of illicit use, including penal measures. The preamble to the 1961 Convention states that the parties to the Convention are “Recognizing that addiction to narcotic drugs constitutes a serious evil for the individual and is fraught with social and economic danger to mankind”. The Conventions are reviewed every ten years and have consistently been upheld.

The UN system of drug control includes the Office of Drugs and Crime, the International Narcotics Control Board, and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The works of these bodies are positive and essential in international drug demand and supply reduction. They are also attacked by those seeking to legalise drugs.

It is frequently and falsely asserted that the so-called “War on Drugs” is inappropriate and has become a very costly and demonstrable failure. It is declared by some that vast resources have been poured into the prevention of drug use and the suppression of illicit manufacturing, trafficking, and supply. It is further claimed that what is essentially a chronic medical problem has been turned into a criminal justice issue with inappropriate remedies that make “innocent” people criminals. In short, the flawed argument is that “prohibition” monies have been wasted and the immeasurable financial resources applied to this activity would be better spent for the general benefit of the community.

The groups supporting legalisation are: people who use drugs, those who believe that the present system of control does more harm than good, and those who are keen to make significant profits from marketing newly authorised addictive substances. In addition to pernicious distribution of drugs, dealers circulate specious and misleading information. They foster the erroneous belief that drugs are harmless, thus adding to even more confused thinking.

Superficially crafted, yet pseudo-persuasive arguments are put forward that can be accepted by many concerned, well intentioned people who have neither the time nor the knowledge to research the matter thoroughly, but accept them in good faith. Frequently high profile people claim that legalisation is the best way of addressing a major social problem without cogent supporting evidence. This too influences others, especially the ill informed who accept statements as being accurate and well informed. Through this ill-informed propaganda, people are asked to believe that such action would defeat the traffickers, take the profit out of the drug trade and solve the drug problem completely.

The total case for legalisation seems to be based on the assertion that the government assault on alleged civil liberties has been disastrously and expensively ineffective and counter-productive. In short, it is alleged, in contradiction to evidence, that prohibition has produced more costs than benefits and, therefore, the use of drugs on a personal basis should be permitted. Advocates claim that legalisation would eliminate the massive expenditure incurred by prohibition and would take the profit out of crime for suppliers and dealers. They further claim that it would decriminalise what they consider “understandable” human behaviour and thus prevent the overburdening of the criminal justice system that is manifestly failing to cope. It is further argued irrationally that police time would not be wasted on minor drug offences, the courts would be freed from the backlog of trivial cases and the prisons would not be used as warehouses for those who choose to use drugs, and the saved resources could be used more effectively.

Types of drug legalisation

The term “legalisation” can have any one of the following meanings:

1. Total Legalisation – All illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana would be legal and treated as commercial products. No government regulation would be required to oversee production, marketing, or distribution.

2. Regulated Legalisation – The production and distribution of drugs would be regulated by the government with limits on amounts that can be purchased and the age of purchasers. There would be no criminal or civil sanctions for possessing, manufacturing, or distributing drugs unless these actions violated the regulatory system. Drug sales could be taxed.

3. Decriminalisation – Decriminalisation eliminates criminal sanctions for drug use and provides civil sanctions for possession of drugs. To achieve the agenda of drug legalisation, advocates argue for:

• legalising drugs by lowering or ending penalties for drug possession and use – particularly marijuana;

• legalising marijuana and other illicit drugs as a so-called medicine;
• harm reduction programmes such as needle exchange programmes, drug injection sites, heroin distribution to addicts, and facilitation of so-called safe use of drugs that normalize drug use, create the illusion that drugs can be used safely if one just knows how, and eliminates a goal of abstinence from drugs;

• legalised growing of industrial hemp;
• an inclusion of drug users as equal partners in establishing and enforcing drug policy; and

• protection for drug users at the expense and to the detriment of non-users under the pretence of “human rights.”

The problem is with the drugs and not the drug policies

Legalisation of current illicit drugs, including marijuana, is not a viable solution to the global drug problem and would actually exacerbate the problem. The UN Drug Conventions were adopted because of the recognition by the international community that drugs are an enormous social problem and that the trade adversely affects the global economy and the viability of some countries that have become transit routes.

The huge sums of illegal money generated by the drug trade encourage money laundering and have become inextricably linked with other international organised criminal activities such as terrorism, human trafficking, prostitution and the arms trade. Drug Lords have subverted the democratic governments of some countries to the great detriment of law abiding citizens.

Drug abuse has had a major adverse effect on global health and the spread of communicable diseases such as AIDS/HIV. Control is vitally important for the protection of communities against these problems. There is international agreement in the UN Conventions that drugs should be produced legally under strict supervision to ensure adequate supplies only for medical and research purposes. The cumulative effects of prohibition and interdiction combined with education and treatment during 100 years of international drug control have had a significant impact in stemming the drug problem. Control is working and one can only imagine how much worse the problem would have become without it. For instance:

• In 2007, drug control had reduced the global opium supply to one-third the level in 1907 and even though current reports indicate recent increased cultivation in Afghanistan and production in Southeast Asia, overall production has not increased.

• During the last decade, world output of cocaine and amphetamines has stabilized; cannabis output has declined since 2004; and opium production has declined since 2008. We, therefore, strongly urge nations to uphold and enhance current efforts to prevent the use, cultivation, production, traffic, and sale of illegal drugs. We further urge our leaders to reject the legalisation of currently illicit drugs as an acceptable solution to the world’s drug problem because of the following reasons:

• Only 6.1% of people globally between the ages of 15 and 64 use drugs (World Drug Report 2011 UNODC) and there is little public support for the legalisation of highly dangerous substances. Prohibition has ensured that the total number of users is low because legal sanctions do influence people’s behaviour.

• There is a specific obligation to protect children from the harms of drugs, as is
evidenced through the ratification by the majority of United Nations Member States of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Article 33 states that Member States “shall take all appropriate measures, including legislative, administrative, social and educational measures, to protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances as defined in the relevant international treaties, and to prevent the use of children in the illicit production and trafficking of such substances”.

• Legalisation sends the dangerous tacit message of approval, that drug use is
acceptable and cannot be very harmful.

• Permissibility, availability and accessibility of dangerous drugs will result in
increased consumption by many who otherwise would not consider using them.

• Enforcement of laws creates risks that discourage drug use. Laws clearly define what is legal and illegal and emphasise the boundaries.

• Legalisation would increase the risks to individuals, families, communities and world regions without any compensating benefits.

• Legalisation would remove the social sanctions normally supported by a legal system and expose people to additional risk, especially the young and vulnerable.

• The legalisation of drugs would lead inevitably to a greater number of dependencies and addictions likely to match the levels of licit addictive substances. In turn, this would lead to increasing related morbidity and mortality, the spread of communicable diseases such as AIDS/HIV and the other blood borne viruses exacerbated by the sharing of needles and drugs paraphernalia, and an increased burden on the health and social services.

• There would be no diminution in criminal justice costs as, contrary to the view held by those who support legalisation, crime would not be eliminated or reduced. Dependency often brings with it dysfunctional families together with increased domestic child abuse.

• There will be increases in drugged driving and industrial accidents.

• Drug Control is a safeguard protecting millions from the effects of drug abuse and addiction particularly, but not exclusively, in developing countries.

• Statements about taxation offsetting any additional costs are demonstrably flawed and this has been shown in the case of alcohol and tobacco taxes. Short of governments distributing free drugs, those who commit crime now to obtain them would continue to do so if they became legal.

• Legalisation would not take the profit out of the drug trade as criminals will always find ways of countering legislation. They would continue their dangerous activities including cutting drugs with harmful substances to maximise sales and profits. Aggressive marketing techniques, designed to promote increased sales and use, would be applied rigorously to devastating effect.

• Other ‘legal’ drugs – alcohol and tobacco, are regularly traded on the black market and are an international smuggling problem; an estimated 600 billion cigarettes are smuggled annually (World Drug report 2009). Taxation monies raised from these products go nowhere near addressing consequential costs.

• Many prisons have become incubators for infection and the spread of drug related diseases at great risk to individual prisoners, prison staff and the general public. Failure to eliminate drug use in these institutions exacerbates the problem.

• The prisons are not full of people who have been convicted for mere possession of drugs for personal use. This sanction is usually reserved for dealers and those who commit crime in the furtherance of their possession.

• The claim that alcohol and tobacco may cause more harm than some drugs is not a pharmacokinetics of psychotropic substances suggest that more, not less, control of their access is warranted.

• Research regularly and increasingly demonstrates the harms associated with drug use and misuse. There is uncertainty, yet growing evidence, about the long-term detrimental effects of drug use on the physical, psychological and emotional health of substance users.

• It is inaccurate to suggest that the personal use of drugs has no consequential and damaging effects. Apart from the harm to the individual users, drugs affect others by addiction, violence, criminal behaviour and road accidents. Some drugs remain in the body for long periods and adversely affect performance and behaviour beyond the time of so-called ‘private’ use. Legalisation would not diminish the adverse effects associated with drug misuse such as criminal, irrational and violent behaviour and the mental and physical harm that occurs in many users.

• All drugs can be dangerous including prescription and over the counter medicines if they are taken without attention to medical guidance. Recent research has confirmed just how harmful drug use can be and there is now overwhelming evidence (certainly in the case of cannabis) to make consideration of legalisation irresponsible.

• The toxicity of drugs is not a matter for debate or a vote. People are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. Those who advocate freedom of choice cannot create freedom from adverse consequences.

• Drug production causes huge ecological damage and crop erosion in drug producing areas.

• Nearly every nation has signed the UN Conventions on drug control. Any government of signatory countries contemplating legalisation would be in breach of agreements under the UN Conventions which recognise that unity is the best approach to combating the global drug problem. The administrative burden associated with legalisation would become enormous and probably unaffordable to most governments. Legalisation would require a massive government commitment to production, supply, security and a bureaucracy that would necessarily increase the need for the employment at great and unaffordable cost for all of the staff necessary to facilitate that development.

• Any government policy must be motivated by the consideration that it must first do no harm. There is an obligation to protect citizens and the compassionate and sensible method must be to do everything possible to reduce drug dependency and misuse, not to encourage or facilitate it. Any failures in a common approach to a problem would result in a complete breakdown in effectiveness. Differing and fragmented responses to a common predicament are unacceptable for the wellbeing of the international community. It is incumbent on national governments to cooperate in securing the greatest good for the greatest number.

ISSUED this 21st day of December, 2011 by the following groups:
Drug Prevention Network of the Americas (DPNA)
Institute on Global Drug Policy
International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse
International Task Force on Strategic Drug Policy
People Against Drug Dependence & Ignorance (PADDI), Nigeria
Europe Against Drugs (EURAD)
World Federation Against Drugs (WFAD)
Peoples Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance (PREDA)
Drug Free Scotland

After alcohol, marijuana is the drug most abused by teens. In fact,
marijuana is the most widely used illicit substance in the United
States and recent data show an uptrend in teen marijuana use
during 2009. Unfortunately, it is still viewed today by many as being the
same drug it was 45 years ago, despite significant changes.

Prevalence of Use by
Teens in the past 30 ays (2008)
monitoringthefuture.org
Marijuana:
8th grade – 5.8%,
10th grade- 13.8%,
12th grade – 19.4%

It is a Stronger Drug Today. Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol, A.K.A. “THC” is
the active ingredient in marijuana that creates the intoxication. From the
1960’s – 1970’s marijuana was around 1/2 % – 3% THC. For 35 years following the 70‘s, the potency of
marijuana slowly increased to 4% by 1995.

2. Average Age of First Use is Younger Today.
Replicated studies since 1997 have provided a convergence of data suggesting that “early onset of first
intoxication,” as an independent variable, significantly increases the probability of developing addiction. 4
Today the average age of first intoxication is 12 years old. This compares to the 1960’s when marijuana
was primarily used by college students.
One study by (1997) Grant & Dawson, shows the probability of a person developing addiction based
on age of first intoxication in the chart below. In addition to age as a variable if the drug-user has a
genetic family history of addiction then the risk factor is increased by 15 percent. See chart below.

3. Marijuana Then vs. Today – A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words:

Marijuana Then:

Paraphernalia Then:

Marijuana Today:

20 – 25% THC)

Paraphernalia Today

Vaporizer, Grinder, Blunt Wrap

Clearly this is not the same marijuana used 40 years ago or certainly prior to 1995. For many, this grade of
marijuana has only been accessible from “cannabis clubs.” At the same time, because the cost of the marijuana
in the clubs was so expensive, many card holders still purchased marijuana from dealers on the street.
However, with the economic contraction high grade marijuana prices have fallen in many of the cannabis clubs
and access is now easier. Moreover, seeds to grow highly potent marijuana are easily purchased via the internet.
Clients in our program state that “the weed is so sticky I need to use a weed grinder to break it up if I want to
roll a blunt.”

4. Withdrawal From the Drug Can Occur Today:

t the 2009 medical doctor’s CSAM conference in San Francisco, a focus was on how to manage marijuana
withdrawal with Gabapentin. Withdrawal symptoms include loss of appetite, problems sleeping and anxiety.
Clearly people did not experience withdrawal 40 years ago and medicines weren’t being explored to manage
withdrawal symptoms. Finally, with regard to teens, any drug being abused inhibits normal neural, emotional
and social development, which can create a pathological relationship to intoxication resulting in negative
consequences with school, family, money, friendships, romantic attachments, health, mental health, sports,
employment, etc.

Final Thoughts: Evaluations, Education
&Treatment

Marijuana is not the innocuous drug that some believe it to be.
Too often parents and professionals base their understanding of
the drug from their own personal use 20 years ago. One of the
biggest challenges facing professionals
who specialize in the treatment of teen
and young adult addictive disorders is
that the intervention is not only with the
individual, but it is also with the family,
other health care professionals, schools,
and legal system, who might “minimize”
or discount the severity of marijuana
abuse. Statements such as “It is only
marijuana,” “at least it isn’t oxycontin,
meth, etc” are examples of the type of
denial described as “minimizing.” These messages from
various systems support denial for the individual who is having
consequences in different areas of their life because of the drug.
For this reason, intervention must occur with the individual,
family and community in order to be effective. It is also
important that if families are seeking help for their child who is
abusing drugs, they should seek professionals who are specially
trained in adolescent and young adult addiction. If you are a
parent or a professional working with teens and it is discovered
that they have used, regardless of the frequency, an evaluation
by a specialist is warranted. The individual needs to become
educated, explore their relationship to intoxication and examine
how it has already impacted different areas of their life in
addition to learning new affect regulation and relational skills to
move beyond this in their life. In addition, the family needs
education on teen addiction, an understanding on how the brain,
emotional, and social development are thwarted by drug use.
An examination of parental denial & enabling is needed as well
as help with developing and implementing a good home
contract, drug testing and education regarding how to be both a
supportive resource for their child meanwhile maintaining a
zero tolerance of drug use.

Sources:
1. Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A Benson, Jr., “Marijuana and Medicine:
Assessing the Science Base,” Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of
Medicine (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999).
2. http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/data/09data.html#2009data-drugs
3. http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs37/37035/national.html
4. (1997) Grant & Dawson, Journal of Substance Abuse, Vol. 9
5. http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/newUsers.html
6. (1997) Grant & Dawson, Journal of Substance Abuse

PATIENTS suffering the effects of cannabis abuse are being treated by Tasmanian public hospitals every day, says a leading health authority.

People with short-term drug-induced psychosis and longer-term mental illness, compounded by pot smoking, are seeking medical help at an increasing rate.   Mental Health Services clinical statewide director Peter Norrie said the Royal Hobart Hospital was seeing many cannabis cases.

First-time pot smokers were turning up at the Royal with full-blown psychosis — delusional, confused and anxious.   Other more regular pot smokers with long-term mental illness were fronting for treatment for episodes likely to have been triggered or related to using cannabis. 

“These days it’s close to every day,” said Dr Norrie, who is a senior clinical consultant psychiatrist at the Royal.   He said he was talking about “drug-induced psychosis or long-term mental illness associated with pot smoking”.   Dr Norrie said it was “very common” for first-time users to present with “floridly psychotic” behaviour.

He said psychiatrists were increasingly concerned with the link between substance abuse and mental illness.   Cannabis use had been linked with depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. International studies show modern strains of marijuana are from three to 10 times stronger than those used by previous generations.

“Clinically psychiatrists have suspected a link for many years and the latest research seems to confirm this,” Dr Norrie said.

“The chicken-and-egg debate has raged for years whether pot causes psychosis or people with a tendency to psychotic illness are predisposed to smoke pot.”

Dr Norrie said the first signs of schizophrenia were often a lack of engagement with society. But those symptoms could also be what is commonly known as “typically teenage” or a sign of the onset of depression.

Disengaged teenagers could then turn to cannabis.

If psychosis did occur it was hard to tell whether smoking pot was a cause or a symptom. Dr Norrie said some pot smokers appeared to be able to continue the habit without serious mental illness but others were prone to individual cases of psychosis or longer-term mental disease.

“There’s a certain group of people who smoke pot who are unlikely to develop mental illness but there’s certainly a significant number of the population who suffer from mental illness and pot smoking adds to the risk,” Dr Norrie said.

Drug-induced psychosis usually consists of paranoia, confusion and anxiety.

Sufferers present with memory problems and delusions. They can believe they have special powers, hear and see things that are not there and are unable to distinguish what is real.

Source: Sunday Tasmanian 30th January 2005

Physicians who encounter myocardial infarction in teenagers should consider the possibility that the teens may have ingested K2, a form of synthetic cannabinoid, researchers said.

“Although chest pain is a common presenting complaint of teenagers seen in emergency departments, chest pain from cardiac causes remains exceedingly rare,” Colin Kane, MD, a pediatric cardiologist at the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and colleagues wrote in the December issue ofPediatrics. “Use of illicit drugs causing chest pain and myocardial ischemia, however, must remain part of the differential diagnosis.”

The researchers reported on three cases of myocardial infarction in teenagers following ingestion of K2. Designer drugs containing synthetic cannabinoids have become more popular among teens, but little is known about their health implications.

K2 is a collection of herbs and spices that have been treated with a synthetic cannabinoid. The effects are said to be stronger than naturally occurring cannabis.

“These types of drugs give a marijuana-like effect but do not show up on drug screens,” Kane explained to MedPage Today. Therefore, careful questioning may be needed to elicit information about K2 exposure, the authors suggested.
All three cases involved 16-year-old males with no previous health problems. Each complained of chest pains of at least three days’ duration and presented between August and November of 2010.

Initial electrocardiograms revealed ST-segment elevation and high troponin levels. There was no personal or family history of early cardiac problems. Urine drugs screens noted the presence of THC in two patients. No other drugs, including cocaine and amphetamines, were found.

“When the first patient came we initially thought it was a virus that was affecting his heart,” said Kane. “The day after he was hospitalized, the chest pain, ECG, and laboratory test all changed dramatically. We went back to the patient and were more persistent about anything else he might have done. It just isn’t normal for a 16-year-old to have a heart attack.”
Shortly thereafter, two new cases presented with similar findings. After establishing that these males also had smoked K2, Kane and colleagues became concerned because their patients were not having just chest pains, but actual heart attacks.

“I have since then seen a number of kids in my practice who have smoked K2 and complained of chest pains,” said Kane. “I haven’t seen any other frank heart attacks.”

This led them to wonder if there was something different about the K2 that was in circulation at that time. Another option is that teenagers were showing up in the emergency room, but the heart attacks were not found because it is so atypical in the age group.

“It is disconcerting and frightening that K2 is relatively easy to obtain and could have such serious health consequences,” said Kane. “Emergency and primary care doctors need to ask patients specifically about the use of K2 and synthetic marijuana. If the clinical findings fit, physicians should take the extra step and look for heart damage, even in previously healthy teenagers.”

Source:   www.pediatrics.aappublications.org at University of Florida on November 14, 2011

As marijuana use among teenagers increases and its perceived danger among this age group decreases, clinicians need to know the latest science about the harmful effects of the drug on the adolescent brain, according to a researcher at the University of Colorado, Denver.

Paula Riggs, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, notes the most recent Monitoring the Future Survey shows a significant increase in marijuana use, including daily marijuana use among U. S. high school students and a decrease in perceived risk of use. “There are a number of indicators, including the increasing number of states that have passed ‘medical marijuana’ legislation, and that society as a whole tends to view marijuana as a relatively benign, recreational drug. However, scientific research does not support this.”

A growing body of research shows that adolescent marijuana use can be detrimental to the brain development and may produce long-lasting neurocognitive deficits and increased risk of mental health problems including psychosis, said Dr. Riggs, who spoke about this topic at the recent California Society of Addiction Medicine meeting.

Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States. Although some have questioned whether marijuana is an addictive drug, scientific research shows that one in 10 people overall, and one in six adolescents, who use marijuana develop dependence or addiction, Dr. Riggs says. Research shows that marijuana can cause structural damage, neuronal loss and impair brain function on a number of levels, from basic motor coordination to more complex tasks, such as the ability to plan, organize, solve problems, remember, make decisions and control behavior and emotions.

Dr. Riggs also cited recent studies indicating that adolescents may be more vulnerable to addiction, in part due to rapid brain development. “Emerging research suggests that individuals who start using marijuana during their teenage years may have longer-lasting cognitive impairments in executive functioning than those who start later,” she says. “Animal studies also suggest that exposure to marijuana during adolescence compared to adulthood may increase the vulnerability or risk of developing addiction to other substances of abuse such as cocaine and methamphetamine.”

She adds, “It is important for pediatricians, psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians to be aware of current research because they are on the front line to identify teens when they first start to experiment. They need to be able to effectively screen adolescents for marijuana use, and be armed with the scientific facts to educate teens and families about associated risks.”

Source   www.partnershipatdrugfree.org  Nov. 2011

Scientists think they do so in part as a “coping strategy” to avoid bullying from their peers, and partially because they find life boring.

The effect is more pronounced in girls than boys, with those exhibiting high IQs as children more than twice as likely to have tried cocaine or cannabis by the age of 30, as those of lower intelligence. The effect in boys with high IQs is also marked, with them being around 50 per cent more likely to have done so by that age as their less intelligent former classmates.

A team at Cardiff University analysed data from almost 8,000 people born in one week in April 1970, who were enrolled at birth in the ongoing British Cohort Study, which follows participants through life. All these children had their IQs tested between the age of five and 10. Drug use, as reported by the participants themselves, was then recorded at 16 and 30 years of age.

At 16, 7.0 per cent of boys and 6.3 per cent of girls had used cannabis. This minority had “statistically significant higher mean childhood IQ scores” than non-users, according to the authors of the report, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. At 30, 35.4 per cent of men and 15.9 per cent of women had used cannabis, while the figures for cocaine were 8.6 and 3.6 per cent respectively.

The authors noted: “Across most drugs (except amphetamine in men), men and women who reported using in the past 12 months had a significantly higher childhood IQ score than those who reported no use.”
They concluded: “High childhood IQ may increase the risk of substance abuse in early adulthood.”
The study did not look into why this was the case, although it did not fine any relationship between the social class of the participants’ parents and future drug use.

However, the authors noted that other studies suggested “intellectually ‘gifted children’ [with an IQ higher than 130] report high levels of boredom and being stigmatised by peers, either of which could conceivably increase vulnerability to using drugs as an avoidant coping strategy”.

Dr James White of Cardiff University’s Centre for Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Understanding, said: “Although it is not yet clear exactly why there should be a link between high IQ and illicit drug use, previous research has shown that people with a high IQ are more open to new experiences and keen on novelty and stimulation.”

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk 15th Nov.

Nicotine appears to be a “gateway” drug that primes the brain to be susceptible to cocaine, according to a new study in mice.  The researchers say if further studies show the findings apply to humans, a decrease in smoking rates in young people would be expected to lead to a decrease in cocaine addiction, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The study found mice exposed to nicotine in drinking water for at least seven days showed an increased response to cocaine. The researchers also looked at data on cocaine use among a group of high school students, and found 81 percent of those who started using cocaine did so in a month when they were smoking tobacco.

The findings appear in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Previous studies have shown that most illegal drug users report using tobacco products or alcohol before they started illicit drug use, according to a news release by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study. Until now, studies have not shown a biological mechanism through which exposure to nicotine increases vulnerability to illegal drug use, the release notes.

“Now that we have a mouse model of the actions of nicotine as a gateway drug this will allow us to explore the molecular mechanisms by which alcohol and marijuana might act as gateway drugs,” lead author Eric Kandel, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center, said in the release. “In particular, we would be interested in knowing if there is a single, common mechanism for all gateway drugs or if each drug utilizes a distinct mechanism.”

Source:   www.drugfree.org.  4th Nov.

Children of drug addicts are suffering in desperation as shame and secrecy shroud the substance misuse in families, it was claimed today.

Youngsters whose parents take drugs are also more likely to have problems with substances, as well as their mental health, social skills and academically, a seminar heard. Joan O’Flynn, director of the National Advisory Committee on Drugs (NACD), said there is a need for more integration between addiction services, children’s services and medical professionals.

“Alcohol and drugs misuse by parents can impact negatively on a child’s experience of positive parenting and can create stressful family circumstances that impact on child development,” she said. “For many of the affected children, the effect of their parents’ substance misuse continues into their adult lives.

“For some, the impact can be multifaceted and persist not only into adult life but even into the lives of the next generation.” She added that stress, combined with the increased likelihood of the child being in care or homeless, leaves young people at a high risk of emotional isolation or social marginalisation.

Alcohol Action Ireland estimates between 61,000 and 104,000 children aged under 15 are living with parents who misuse alcohol. Director Fiona Ryan said: “Shame and secrecy shroud the issue of substance misuse in families with children living lives of quiet desperation.

“Alcohol Action Ireland has spent the past three years campaigning for children affected by parental alcohol problems to be seen and heard.” An NACD report – ‘Parental Substance Misuse: Addressing its Impact on Children’ – was launched at a seminar it jointly hosted with the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Alcohol Action Ireland, the national charity for alcohol-related issues.

The report reviewed all major international research on the impact of parental substance misuse on children and identified what steps can be taken in Ireland to reduce its impact.

It recommended additional research and data be collected to properly estimate the number of children whose parents have substance misuse problems. It also wants an assessment of which adult alcohol and drug treatment services are supporting parents and liaising with child support services. Women should also be educated on the adverse effects of consuming alcohol and drugs during pregnancy, it added.

Source: www.IrishExaminer.com 26th October 2011

It was the party drug of the 90s. But alarmingly Ecstasy’s popularity seems to be rising again. A worrying trend is re-emerging for the illegal substance after U.S. hospital admissions involving Ecstasy leapt 74.8 per cent in just four years, according to a national study.
Most of the Ecstasy-related hospital visits involved patients aged 18 to 29, but notably 17.9 per cent involved children as young as 12
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) study indicated the number of hospital emergency visits involving Ecstasy increased from 10,220 in 2004 to 17,865 visits in 2008.
Slightly more than half (52.8 per cent) of the emergency visits were male, the study found. More than a third of the Ecstasy-related visits were made in the South (34.0 per cent) while nearly a third were in the West (31.4 per cent).
Nearly a fifth were made in the Midwest (18.5 per cent), and nearly a sixth were made in the Northeast (16.1 per cent).
But in another alarming trend the study also found that 77.8 per cent of these visits – almost 8 in 10 cases – also involved the use of at least one of more other substances alongside Ecstasy.
The most common drugs used in combination with Ecstasy are marijuana, alcohol and cocaine.
In cases where patients were 21 or older 39.7 per cent had taken Ecstasy with three or more other drugs.
‘The resurgence of Ecstasy use is cause for alarm that demands immediate attention and action,’ said SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S Hyde, J D.

The drug induces feelings of euphoria but can produce psychedelic and stimulant side effects such as anxiety attacks, hypertension and even hypothermia.
The variety and severity of these can increase when the drug is used in combination with other substances.
Dr Peter Delany, director of the Centre for Behavioural Health Statistics and Qualities at SAMHSA, said the agency ‘needed to start digging’ to find the cause of the spike in admissions. ‘Kids are getting it (Ecstasy) at raves and parties, which may indicate a return to social gatherings,’ he said. ‘It is also probably a very cheap drug,’ he added.
‘The largest group of people (doing Ecstasy) are 18 to 29. These are people who have a lot more freedom and a lot more money,’ he said. He also cited the need for prevention education to continue well into adulthood to address this age group.
The more pressing issue, Dr Delany said was the people who were admitted to hospital with more than one substance in their system. ‘Ignorance is part of it,’ he said. ‘There is a lot of risk taking in that age group. ‘This (Ecstasy) is not a safe drug. The first time out of the door can have some serious side effects. When you are mixing it with multiple drugs you don’t know what the reaction will be. Everyone is different,’ he said.
Dr Delany also cited so-called ‘pharm’ or ‘trail mixing’ parties, when young people put a collection of drugs into a bowl and it becomes a very dangerous lucky dip.
But these bowls don’t just contain illegal drugs, they also contain prescription drugs raided from parents’ medical cabinets. Another report by SAMHSA found there has also been a dramatic rise in emergency visits associated with the misuse of prescription drugs.
From 2004 to 2008 these rose from 144,644 visits to 305,885 visits a year and occurred among men and women, as well as among those younger than age 21 and those 21 and older.
The three prescription opioid pain relievers most frequently involved were Oxycodone products (rose 152 percent), Hydrocodone products (rose 123 per cent) and Methadone products (rose 73 per cent).
‘These alarming findings provide one more example of how the misuse of prescription pain relievers is impacting lives and our health care system,’ said SAMHSA administrator Pamela S Hyde. ‘This public health threat requires an all-out effort to raise awareness of the public about proper use, storage, and disposal of these powerful drugs.’

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk 25th March 2011

WEEKLY DRINKING
Weekly drinking is reported among even the youngest children in the survey. At age 11, 3% of young people report drinking alcohol every week (4% of boys and 2% of girls)). One in ten 13-year olds (10%) and more than a quarter of 15- year olds (27%) are weekly drinkers. Among 13 and 15-year olds, there is no gender difference in weekly drinking.
In all six surveys since 1990, young people have been asked about their alcohol consumption frequency2. The highest rates of weekly drinking were found in 1998 (45%of girls and 44% of boys). Reporting of weekly drinking in 2010 is similar to that in 1990, with a particularly large decline since 2006 among both boys and girls (29% of boys in 2010 compared with 39% in 2006 and 25% of girls in 2010 compared with 36% in 2006) .

TYPES OF ALCOHOL DRINKS
Young people were asked to report how frequently they drink each of seven listed alcoholic drinks. They were instructed to include those times when they only drink a small amount. Beer is the alcoholic drink most commonly consumed at least once a week by 15-year old boys, whereas, for 15-year old girls, spirits and alcopops are the preferred drinks. Boys are almost 5 times more likely to drink beer weekly than girls. Girls are 1.5 times more likely to drink alcopops.

DRUNKENNESS
Overall, a fifth of young people (20%) have been drunk on at least two occasions. Prevalence of drunkenness is much higher among older adolescents; 43% of 15-year olds report having been drunk at least twice compared with 15% of 13-year olds and 2% of 11-year olds .
At age 15, girls are more likely than boys to report drunkenness (47% of girls compared with 40% of boys).
Reporting of drunkenness among 15-year olds increased in the 1990s and then subsequently declined
Among boys, prevalence in 2010 (40%) is similar to that in 1990 (44%). Among girls, rates of drunkenness have declined slightly since the late 1990s, but have not changed since 2006 (48%), and remain higher in 2010 (47%) than in 1990 (36%).

FREQUENCY OF CANNABIS USE
Nineteen percent (19%) of 15-year olds and 4% of 13-year olds have used cannabis at least once in their lives
Boys are more likely to have ever used cannabis than girls. Sixteen percent (16%) of 15-year olds and 3% of 13-year olds reported cannabis use within the previous year (Figure 12.13), with 15-year old boys being more likely to have used cannabis in the previous year than 15-year old girls (19% and 13% respectively). Nine percent (9%) of 15-year olds used cannabis in the previous month, compared to just 2% of 13-year olds. Among 15-year olds, boys are more likely than girls to report cannabis use in the last month (12% of boys and 6% of girls).
Between 2002 and 2010, there has been a decrease in lifetime cannabis use among 15-year olds, from 39% to 23% among boys and from 35% to 15% among girls (Use of cannabis in the previous year has also decreased since 2002, from 31% to 19% among boys, and from 30% to 13% among girls .

CANNABIS USER GROUPS AMONG 15-YEAR OLDS
Six percent (6%) of 15-year olds are classified as ‘experimental’ cannabis users (once or twice in the past 12 months), 7% as ‘regular’ users (between 3 and 39 times in past 12 months) and 2% as ‘heavy’ users (40 times or more in past 12 months) A small number (3%) report using cannabis, but not in the previous 12 months and were therefore classified as ‘former’ users. Boys are more likely to be heavy users, but there is no gender difference among other user groups. The proportion of young people in each category of cannabis use is lower than in 2002

Source:THE HEALTH BEHAVIOUR IN SCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN: WHO COLLABORATIVE CROSS-NATIONAL STUDY (HBSC) SCOTLAND NATIONAL REPORT 2010 SUBSTANCE USE

Mar 24, 2011

Marijuana use during adolescence and young adulthood increases the risk of psychotic symptoms, while continued cannabis use may increase the risk for psychotic disorder in later life, concludes a new study published in the British Medical Journal.

Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug in the world, particularly among adolescents, and is consistently linked with an increased risk for mental illness. However, it is hasn’t been clear whether the link between cannabis and psychosis is causal, or whether it is because people with psychosis use cannabis to “self- medicate” their symptoms.

So a team of researchers, led by Professor Jim van Os from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, investigated the association between cannabis use and the incidence and persistence of psychotic symptoms over 10 years.

The study occurred in Germany and involved a random sample of 1,923 teens and young adults from the ages of 14 to 24.

Incident cannabis use almost doubled the risk of later incident psychotic symptoms, even after accounting for factors such as age, sex, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and other psychiatric diagnoses. Furthermore, in those with cannabis use at the start of the study, continued use of cannabis over the study period increased the risk of persistent psychotic symptoms. There was no evidence for self medication effects as psychotic symptoms did not predict later cannabis use.

These results “help to clarify the temporal association between cannabis use and psychotic experiences,” the authors said in their study summary. “In addition, cannabis use was confirmed as an environmental risk factor impacting on the risk of persistence of psychotic experiences.”

Source: British Medical Journal March 2011

24 February 2011

DrugScope has welcomed new research demonstrating that drug treatment services for young people are extremely cost effective, with long term savings of between £5 and £8 for every pound invested.
Published by the Department for Education, the report, Specialist drug and alcohol services for young people – a cost benefit analysis, finds that drug and alcohol treatment for young people reduces otherwise significant economic, social and health costs. Immediate savings are achieved in reduced crime and improved health. In the longer term, there are reductions in costs associated with problematic drug use in adulthood, including unemployment, crime and drug and alcohol dependency.

Approximately 24,000 young people received specialist drug and alcohol treatment in the UK in 2008/09. Most were treatedprimarily for alcohol (37%) or cannabis (53%); one in ten were treated for problems associated with Class A drugs, including heroin and crack.
A report published by DrugScope in 2009, Young people’s drug treatment at the crossroads, found that as well as helping young people with their drug or alcohol problems, treatment services also address wider needs, such as mental health issues, involvement with the criminal justice system and social exclusion.
Despite evidence of the cost effectiveness of spending on substance misuse treatment, many young people’s services have contacted DrugScope to report significant cuts in local funding.
Commenting on the report, Martin Barnes, Chief Executive of DrugScope said:
“At a time when many drug and alcohol services for young people are facing funding cuts, this research makes a timely, compelling and robust case for continued investment. Even on quite cautious and conservative estimates, the evidence shows that there are immediate net gains in return for spending on drug and alcohol treatment. Not only will cuts in services have a negative impact on vulnerable young people, the research confirms that greater costs are likely to be incurred in terms of crime, unemployment and poor health.
“The concern is that with a record number of young people not in education, employment or training there will be a greater demand on prevention and treatment services. It is far easier to prevent young people from developing problems at an early stage that it is to treat adults with addiction issues. A considered assessment of the benefits to local communities of investment in drug and alcohol treatment services needs to be made to inform decisions on funding.”

Source: www.drugscope.org.uk 24 Feb 2011

Vol. 13, Issue 26
Distribution: 6,606
U n i v e r s i t y o f M a r y l a n d , C o l l e g e P a r k

A Weekly FAX from the Center for Substance Abuse Research
Nine behaviors and attitudes differentiate students who used marijuana before age 15 from those who had not, according to an analysis of data from the 2002 Maryland Adolescent Survey (MAS). Overall, one-fifth of Maryland12th grade students reported using marijuana before age 15.

A scale of 9 warning signs of early marijuana use among 12th graders was developed from an analysis of the MAS data (see below). The scale also detected early use among 8th and 10th graders. The more warning signs a student had, the more likely he or she was to have used marijuana early (see Figure 1). For example, approximately three-fourths of 12th graders with 6 or more warning signs were early marijuana users, compared to 3% of 12th graders with no warning signs.
Students with more warning signs also reported using a greater number of other illegal drugs* and experiencing a greater number of serious problems resulting from drug and alcohol use (see Figure 2). The report, “Warning Signs for Early Marijuana Users Among Maryland’s Public School Students,” discusses the implications of these findings for intervening with youth and
implementing prevention programs. Complimentary copies of the report can be ordered by contacting CESAR at cesar@cesar.umd.edu or 301-405-9770.

Behaviors
• Cigarette use before age 15
• Alcohol use before age 15
• 20 or more unexcused absences
• Drug arrest
• Alcohol arrest

Attitudes/Opinions

• Smoking marijuana is safe
• Smoking cigarettes is safe
• My parents think it’s okay to smoke marijuana
• My parents think it’s okay to smoke cigarettes
The 9 Warning Signs for Early Marijuana Use

0 1 2 3 4 5 6+
Number of Warning Signs
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
0.3 0.9 1.8
3.4
5.0
6.4
9.1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6+
Number of Warning Signs
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
0.1 0.5 1.3
2.4
3.5 4.4
6.7
Alcohol & Drug Problems Other Illegal Drugs Used
Figure 1: Percentage of Maryland
12th Grade Students Reporting
Marijuana Use Before Age 15
0 1 2 3 4 5 6+
Number of Warning Signs
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
3%
18%
40%
54%59%
73%76%
*Other illegal drugs were inhalants, nitrates, crack, cocaine, LSD, PCP, other hallucinogens, methamphetamines, designer drugs, heroin, amphetamines,
barbiturates, narcotics, and Ritalin®.
Figure 2: Mean Number of Other Illegal Drugs* Used
in Lifetime and Alcohol and Drug Problems**
by Maryland 12th Graders
**Alcohol and drug problems were school absences, health problems, family problems, being high/drunk at school, poor school performance, inability to stop
using drugs/alcohol, and driving while under the influence of alcohol/drugs.
301-405-9770 (voice) 301-403-8342 (fax) CESAR@cesar.umd.edu www.cesar.umd.edu
CESAR FAX is supported by BYRN 2003-1006, awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice through the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention.

SOURCE: Maryland Drug Early Warning System (DEWS), CESAR, “Warning Signs for Early Marijuana Users Among Maryland’s Public School Students,” DEWS Investigates, June 2004. For more information, contact Dr. Eric Wish at ewish@cesar.umd.edu.

Source: CesarFax June 28, 2004

This week, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University released the National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XVI: Teens and Parents. This year’s survey reveals that teens who regularly use social networking sites are at increased risk of smoking, drinking and using drugs. The survey finds that compared to teens who in a typical day do not spend any time on a social networking site, those who do are five times likelier to use tobacco, three times likelier to use alcohol, and twice as likely to use marijuana.

The CASA Columbia survey also reveals that 40 percent of all teens surveyed have seen pictures on Facebook, Myspace or other social networking sites of kids getting drunk, passed out, or using drugs and kids who have seen such pictures at also at increased substance abuse risk.

This year’s survey explored teen TV viewing habits in relation to teen substance abuse and found that compared to teens that do not watch suggestive teen programming, those who do are likelier to smoke, drink and use drugs.

According to Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA Columbia’s Founder and Chairman and Former U.S. Secretary for Health, Education, and Welfare: “The relationship of social networking site images of kids drunk, passed out, or using drugs and of suggestive teen programming to increased teen risk of substance abuse offers grotesque confirmation of the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. The time has come for those who operate and profit from social networking sites like Facebook to deploy their technological expertise to curb such images and to deny use of their sites to children and teens who post pictures of themselves and their friends drunk, passed out or using drugs. Continuing to provide the electronic vehicle for transmitting such images constitutes electronic child abuse.”
Source: www.CADCA.org Aug. 2011

Women who smoke while pregnant should be aware that they are increasing the chance their baby will be born malformed, say experts.
The risk for having a baby with missing or deformed limbs or a cleft lip is over 25% higher for smokers, data show. Along with higher risks of miscarriage and low birth weight, it is another good reason to encourage women to quit, say University College London doctors.
In England and Wales 17% of women smoke during pregnancy. And among under 20s the figure is 45%. Although most will go on to have a healthy baby, smoking can cause considerable damage to the unborn child.
Missing limbs
Researchers now estimate that each year in England and Wales several hundred babies are born with a physical defect directly caused by their mother’s smoking. Every year in England and Wales around 3,700 babies in total are born with such a condition. The experts base their calculations on 172 research papers published over the last 50 years, which looked at maternal smoking and birth defects.
The findings, from 174,000 cases of malformation and 11.7 million healthy births, revealed that smoking increased the risk of many abnormalities. The chance of a baby being born with missing or deformed limbs is 26% higher, and cleft lip or palate is 28% more likely.
Similarly, the risk of clubfoot 28% greater, and gastrointestinal defects 27% more. Skull defects are 33% more likely, and eye defects 25% more common. The greatest increase in risk – of 50% – was for a condition called gastroschisis, where parts of the stomach or intestines protrude through the skin. Professor Allan Hackshaw, who led the research, suspects many women who smoke while pregnant do not know about these risks.
“There’s still this idea among some women that if you smoke the baby will be small and that will make it easier when it comes to the delivery. “But what is not appreciated is that smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of defects in the child that are life-long.”
Women should quit smoking before becoming pregnant, or very early on, to reduce the risks
He said very few public health educational policies mention birth defects when referring to smoking and those that do are not very specific – this is largely because of past uncertainty over which ones are directly linked. “Now we have this evidence, advice should be more explicit about the kinds of serious defects such as deformed limbs, and facial and gastrointestinal malformations that babies of mothers who smoke during pregnancy could suffer from,” he said.
Of the 700,000 babies born each year in England and Wales, around 120,000 babies are born to mums who smoke. Amanda Sandford of Action on Smoking and Health said: “This study shows some of the worst outcomes of smoking during pregnancy. Pregnant smokers will be shocked to learn that their nicotine habit could cause eye or limb deformities in their baby.
“There is clearly a need to raise awareness of these risks among girls and to ensure pregnant women are given all the support they need to help them quit smoking and to stay stopped after the birth.” Basky Thilaganathan of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said women who struggled to quit should at least cut down on how much they smoke.
Professor Hackshaw said the risk was likely dose-related – meaning the more a woman smokes, the bigger the risk to her unborn child.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk 12th July 2011

Reports that school prevention programs aimed at curbing alcohol misuse in children are somewhat helpful, enough so to deserve consideration for widespread use, according to a large, international systematic review.

The most significant program effects were reductions in episodes of drunkenness and binge drinking, reviewers found.

“School-based prevention programs that take a social skills-oriented approach or that focus on classroom behavior management can work to reduce alcohol problems in young people,” David Foxcroft, lead review author said. “However, there is good evidence that these sorts of approaches are not always effective.”

The reasons for inconsistent results with these programs are unclear, said Foxcroft, from Great Britain’s Oxford Brookes University.

Foxcroft and co-author Alexander Tsertsvadze, at the University of Ottawa Evidence-Based Practice Center, in Canada, analyzed 53 randomized controlled trials done in a wide range of countries with youth ages 5 to 18 when studies began.

Forty-one studies took place in North America, six in Europe and six in Australia. One was conducted in India and one in Swaziland. Two studies transpired in multiple locations.

Most studies assessed generic prevention programs that targeted several risky behaviors, such as drinking, smoking and drug abuse, while the rest focused on alcohol-specific programs.

The researchers compared drinking among the youngsters who took part in various school-based programs to the drinking done by students who were not. The youngsters in the comparison groups might have participated in other alcohol-prevention programs, such as family-based ones, or they might have just experienced the ordinary school curriculum.

The authors concluded that their evidence supported the use of certain generic prevention programs over alcohol-specific ones. They cited the Life Skills Training Program, the Unplugged Program and the Good Behavior Game as particularly effective interventions.

The review appears in the May 2011 issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.

“These findings are important,” David Jernigan, Ph.D., director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said. “Efforts to reduce young people’s drinking through school-based programs are legion. A $300 million federal program supporting school-based prevention ended last year, partly based on research findings that these programs do not work. This review does not find that. Instead it indicates that there is something in certain school-based programs that in fact can work.”

Jernigan emphasizes that “school-based programs are so often expected to do the whole job of prevention, and this is an unfair expectation.” He describes school-based programs functioning as “lonely voices” in an environment saturated with marketing messages promoting youthful drinking. The amount of drinking in a youngster’s home and community and the price of alcohol are other major influences that need addressing, he said. Until then, “we can’t expect large effects from school-based programs alone.”

Health Behavior News Service is part of the Center for Advancing Health.

Source: www.cadca.org 12th May 2011

The number of under-16s arriving drunk at accident and emergency inAberdeenhas soared by a shocking 60 per cent.

And health chiefs have warned that more and more vital hospital beds are now being filled up with booze-binge schoolchildren.

Alarming statistics reveal the number of people treated for alcohol-related emergencies by NHS Lothian has soared by 68 per cent.

There were 4,751 cases in 2008/09, up from 2,823 in 2006/07. And inAberdeen, the number has risen from 1,712 people five years ago to 2,220 in 2008/09.

The figure for the same period in Aberdeenshire increased from 900 to 1,051.

The numbers were only topped by Greater Glasgow andClyde, with 13,592 alcohol-related discharges in 2008/09.

Worried politicians last night called for urgent action to tackleScotland’s underage drinking shame.

MSP Murdo Fraser, the Tory shadow health secretary, said: “These are frightening figures that show just how deep the problem is. We have to target problem drinks and problem drinkers, give better education on the dangers of alcohol abuse, and crack down on those who sell to children.”

A Labour spokesman called the new statistics “highly alarming”.

He added: “The SNP Government has to bring forward measures that actually work. They need to crack down on the rogue shops that openly sell booze to kids.”

And north-east MSP Maureen Watt said: “The scale of the increase inAberdeenis deeply alarming.

“It is the second largest increase acrossScotlandand more than three times the national average.”

The Nats MSP added: “Aberdeen Royal Infirmary is not the only hospital in which, on any night of the week, beds and trolleys are blocked by people sleeping off the effects of drink.

“Do taxpayers think that is a good use of their money and health professionals’ time? I do not think so.”

Dr Pauline Strachan, director of acute services at NHS Grampian, told a Holyrood committee: “If we look at accident and emergency attendance it was traditionally 20 to 30-year-olds.

“Now we see children as young as 10, 11 or 12 being presented in a drunken state.

“There had been a 60 per cent increase in children under 16 being admitted drunk at accident and emergency.

“Also about 20 or 25 years ago, it tended to be 50 or 60-year-olds who had chronic liver disease.

“Now it’s not unusual for people in their 20s.”

Ambulance chiefs inAberdeenrecently revealed they dealt with more than 6,000 calls during popular drinking times last year.

NHS Grampian said: “Alcohol misuse places an unnecessary burden on emergency services.”

Source:scottish-sun@the-sun.co.uk   15^th June 2010

Teenagers – especially girls – who binge drink could be damaging the part of their brain which controls memory and spatial awareness, say Californian researchers.

Young women’s brains are particularly vulnerable to harm from alcohol because they develop earlier than men’s.  Tests on 95 adolescents aged 16 to 19 were carried out by researchers at severalUSuniversities.

The study is published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Researchers recruited 27 binge-drinking males and 13 females and gave them neurophsychological tests and “spatial working memory” tests to complete.

Binge-drinking young women were defined as those drinking more than three pints of beer or more than four glasses of wine at one sitting. Binge-drinking men drank four pints of beer or a bottle of wine.   The same tests were then carried out on 31 males and 24 females who did not have episodes of drinking heavily and the results compared.

Using MRI scans, the study team found that female teenage heavy drinkers had less brain activation in several brain regions than female non-drinking teens when doing the same spatial task.  They suggested that this could cause problems when driving, playing sports involving complex moves, using a map or remembering how to get somewhere.

Susan Tapert, professor of psychiatry at theUniversityofCaliforniaand lead study author, said these differences in brain activity negatively affected other functions, like concentration and “working memory”.

The study describes “working memory” as using and working with information that is in your mind, like adding up numbers. It is also critical to logical thinking and reasoning.  But the young men studied were not affected to the same extent, Dr Tapert said.   “Male binge drinkers showed some, but less, abnormality as compared to male non-drinkers. This suggests that female teens may be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of heavy alcohol use.”

Fluctuations

Previous research has shown that among adult alcoholics, women are more vulnerable to the damaging effects of alcohol on the brain than men.

Edith Sullivan, a professor in psychiatry and behavioural sciences atStanfordUniversity, said that the brains of adolescent boys and girls appear to be affected differently by alcohol.  “Females’ brains develop one to two years earlier than males, so alcohol use during a different developmental stage – despite the same age – could account for the gender differences.

“Hormonal levels and alcohol-induced fluctuations in hormones could also account for the gender differences. Finally, the same amount of alcohol could more negatively affect females since females tend to have slower rates of metabolism, higher body fat ratios, and lower body weight.”

Don Shenker, from Alcohol Concern, said the research demonstrates why reducing binge drinking among young people must be an urgent priority. “Ministers should go much further to clamp down on off-licence promotions which are driving under-age drinking and reviewing the extent of alcohol marketing which young people are exposed to and which makes drinking appear attractive.

“We have to also look at intervening as early as possible so that when teenagers go to A&E as a result of drinking or in trouble with the police or at school, they are provided with the right advice and support to reduce their risky drinking and make healthier choices.”

A Department of Health spokeswoman said “We are already taking action to tackle problem drinking, including plans to stop supermarkets selling below cost alcohol and working to introduce a tougher licensing regime.   ”Our recent white paper set out our plan to ring-fence public health spending and give power to local communities to improve the health of local people and this includes improving alcohol treatment services through a greater focus on outcomes and payment by results.   We will also be publishing a new alcohol strategy later this year to follow on from the public health white paper.”

Source: www.bbc.co.uk  16^th July 2011

Contact address: Fabrizio Faggiano, Department of Medical Sciences, University of Piemonte Orientale A. Avogadro, Via Santena 5 bis, Novara, 28100, Italy. fabrizio.faggiano@med.unipmn.it.
Editorial group: Cochrane Drugs and Alcohol Group.
Publication status and date: Edited (no change to conclusions), published in Issue 3, 2008.

Citation: Faggiano F, Vigna-Taglianti F, Versino E, Zambon A, Borraccino A, Lemma P. School-based prevention for illicit drugs’ use. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2005, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD003020. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD003020.pub2.

Copyright © 2008 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Abstract

Background

Drug addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease. Primary interventions should be aimed to reduce first use, or prevent the transition from experimental use to addiction. School is the appropriate setting for preventive interventions.
Objectives
To evaluate the effectiveness of school-based interventions in improving knowledge, developing skills, promoting change, and preventing or reducing drug use versus usual curricular activities or a different school-based intervention .
Search strategy
We searched the Cochrane Drug and Alcohol Group trial register (February 2004), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library Issue 2, 2004), MEDLINE (1966 to February 2004) , EMBASE (1988 to February 2004), and other databases. We also contacted researchers in the field and checked reference lists of articles.
Selection criteria
Randomised controlled trials (RCT), case controlled trials (CCT) or controlled prospective studies (CPS) evaluating school-based interventions designed to prevent substance use.
Data collection and analysis
Two authors independently extracted data and assessed trial quality.
Main results
32 studies (29 RCTs and three CPSs) were included with 46539 participants. Twenty eight were conducted in the USA; most were focused on 6th-7th grade students, and based on post-test assessment.

RCTs

(1) Knowledge versus usual curricula
Knowledge focused programs improve drug knowledge (standardised mean difference (SMD) 0.91; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.42 to 1.39).
(2) Skills versus usual curricula
Skills based interventions increase drug knowledge (weighted mean difference (WMD) 2.60; 95% CI 1.17 to 4.03), decision making skills (SMD 0.78; CI 95%: 0.46 to 1.09), self-esteem (SMD 0.22; CI 95% 0.03 to 0.40), peer pressure resistance (relative risk (RR) 2.05; CI 95%: 1.24 to 3.42), drug use (RR 0.81; CI 95% 0.64 to 1.02), marijuana use (RR 0.82; CI 95% 0.73 to 0.92) and hard drug use (RR 0.45; CI 95% 0.24 to 0.85).
(3) Skills versus knowledge
No differences are evident.
(4) Skills versus affective
Skills-based interventions are only better than affective ones in self-efficacy (WMD 1.90; CI 95%: 0.25 to 3.55).

Results from CPSs

No statistically significant results emerge from CPSs.
Authors’ conclusions
Skills based programs appear to be effective in deterring early-stage drug use.
The replication of results with well designed, long term randomised trials, and the evaluation of single components of intervention (peer, parents, booster sessions) are the priorities for research. All new studies should control for cluster effect.
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Plain language summary

School-based prevention for illicit drugs’ use
Drug addiction is a long-term problem caused by an uncontrollable compulsion to seek drugs. People may use drugs to seek an effect, to feel accepted by their peers or as a way of dealing with life’s problems. Even after undertaking detoxification to reach a drug-free state, many return to opioid use. This makes it important to reduce the number of people first using drugs and to prevent transition from experimental use to addiction. For young people, peers, family and social context are strongly implicated in early drug use. Schools offer the most systematic and efficient way of reaching them. School programs can be designed to provide knowledge about the effects of drugs on the body and psychological effects, as a way of building negative attitudes toward drugs; to build individual self-esteem and self-awareness, working on psychological factors that may place people at risk of use; to teach refusal and social life skills; and to encourage alternative activities to drug use, which instil control abilities.
The review authors found 32 controlled studies, of which 29 were randomised, comparing school-based programs aimed at prevention of substance use with the usual curriculum. The 46,539 students involved were mainly in sixth or seventh grade. Programs that focused on knowledge improved drug knowledge to some degree, in six randomised trials. Social skills programs were more widely used (25 randomised trials) and effectively increased drug knowledge, decision-making skills, self-esteem, resistance to peer pressure, and drug use including of marijuana (RR 0.8) and hard drugs (heroin) (RR 0.5). The programs were mainly interactive and involved external educators in 20 randomised trials. Effects of the interventions on assertiveness, attitudes towards drugs, and intention to use drugs were not clearly different in any of the trials.
Most trials were conducted in the USA and, as a nation’s social context and drug policies have a significant influence on the effectiveness of the programs, these results may not be relevant to other countries. Measures of change were often made immediately after the intervention with very little long-term follow up or investigation of peer influence, social context, and involvement of parents.

Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com and www.cochranlibrary.com 2008

Two of the most widely recommended US school and family prevention programmes retarded growth in some forms of substance use, especially among youngsters who had already used by their early teens, but there are some methodological concerns over the findings.
Summary 36 secondary schools in the rural US mid-west were randomly allocated to either carry on as normal (the control schools) or to one of two prevention programmes. Both were delivered primarily in the seventh grade (ages 12–13), and both featured the LifeSkills Training (LST) drug education curriculum consisting of fifteen classroom lessons with later ‘boosters’. In one set of schools, these lessons were supplemented by the Strengthening Families Program: for Parents and Youth 10-14. This entails seven two-hour evening sessions plus four booster sessions in the following year, during which groups of about six or seven families focus in turn on particular parenting issues and skills. In the first hour of each session, parents and children learn in parallel; in the second, they come together to practice these skills with each other. Only a quarter of the families allocated to these (and 38% of those actively recruited) attended any of the family sessions, but results are reported for all the families offered the intervention, regardless of attendance.
Questionnaire responses from 1677 pupils surveyed about six months before the grade seven lessons formed the baseline to assess changes in substance use among the same pupils over each of the five years following the lessons. Typically by then aged 17–18, about three quarters of the starting sample responded to the final assessments. For the featured report the sample was narrowed down slightly to pupils who had provided the relevant outcome measures at least three times: at baseline; about a month after the seventh grade interventions; and during at least one follow-up. For these pupils, the analysis tested whether over the five and a half years:
• trends in the growth of substance use differed between the three sets of schools; and
• whether by the end levels of substance use also differed.
First the study assessed how many pupils had started to use alcohol, cigarettes or cannabis. Most consistently positive results were found for cigarettes; growth in the proportion who had tried smoking, and the final proportion who had used by age 17–18, were significantly lower in intervention schools compared to control schools. For cannabis, only the final proportion was significantly lower, and for alcohol, only the growth trend, and then only when the family intervention had supplemented the lessons. When these measures were combined in an index representing experience of all three substances, both the growth trend and the final outcomes favoured the interventions. Experience of getting drunk was also measured and, like drinking itself, only the growth trend favoured the interventions.
Similar analyses for current use on at least a monthly basis and other more serious patterns of substance use found no results favouring the interventions. However, there were such results among the fifth of pupils considered at high risk of developing substance use problems. These were the pupils who at the first survey point at age 12–13 had already used two of the three substances. Compared to their lower risk peers, among these pupils both interventions had consistently greater effects on overall levels of use across the follow-up years. Further analysis showed that among lower risk pupils, the interventions made no significant difference. But among the higher risk fifth, growth in the average frequency of smoking cigarettes or using cannabis was less than in the control schools, and so too was final average frequency of use. This was not the case for the frequency of drinking or of getting drunk; for these measures only two of the eight outcomes significantly favoured the interventions. Among the same higher risk pupils, indices of serious use patterns combining measures of current or past use of all three substances consistently favoured the intervention schools.
Summarising their findings, the authors noted that for all substance initiation outcomes, one or both intervention groups showed significant, positive differences compared with the control group in the final follow-up year, and/or significant differences in growth trends over the five years since the interventions. In contrast, across all the pupils, more serious substance use outcomes reflecting mainly current and frequent use were not significantly affected. However, these forms of substance use were curbed when the analysis was restricted to higher risk pupils. Though the two interventions often bettered education-as-usual, in no case did one outperform the other. The authors speculated that less convincing initiation-prevention results than in earlier studies might have been due to the family intervention being delayed a year, when more pupils had already initiated substance use. In terms of affecting more serious forms of substance use, pupils already advanced in their substance use patterns responded relatively well, possibly because the messages were more ‘real’ for them and for their parents. Despite randomisation, there remained some significant baseline differences between control and intervention pupils which might also have obscured intervention impacts, though attempts were made to adjust for these in the analyses.
The two programmes tested in the study enjoy among the most widely respected research records in substance use prevention (LST SFP). The featured study’s strengths include large samples, reasonable follow-up rates, randomisation by school and an analysis controlling for the influence of the school itself, and outcome measures probing not just experience of the substances concerned, but how serious and lasting this was. Nevertheless the most which can be said is that the LifeSkills Training element probably retarded the initiation of smoking, possibly cannabis use, but not drinking, had no cross-sample benefits in respect of the forms of substance use of greatest concern, but may have had such benefits among the minority of pupils already relatively advanced in their substance use before the interventions started. Other LifeSkills Training studies have also most consistently found beneficial outcomes in respect of smoking, the programme’s original target.
Focusing on the featured study’s positive findings might give the impression of more all round success, but in respect of the full samples, these consisted of at most 13 out of 44 findings, and possibly (if arguably more appropriate methodological conventions had been followed) seven or fewer. Greater and more consistent success among the higher risk pupils is a tentative finding because of differences between intervention and control schools, because the study was not set up to test this subsample, and because of some methodological issues. Impacts on the forms of drug use of greatest concern emerged solely from this analysis, meaning that the interventions’ ability to reduce these cannot be considered to have been demonstrated, though the possibility that this might prove to be the case is encouraging. Importantly, though many tests did not show the interventions were superior to education-as-usual, none indicated that they were inferior; the only significant findings favoured the interventions. For more on all these issues see background notes.
Disappointingly, and despite earlier findings from the study, there was no real hint that adding the family programme improved on the school lessons in terms of the substance use measures reported in the study, though there may have been other benefits. Remaining support for the family programme comes mainly from a study whose findings (impressive as they were) derived from just over a third of the mainly white and rural families asked to participate in the study. A similar limitation applies to a later study of a substantially revised version among poor black families. Because of the way they were designed, these trials could establish benefits only among the minority of families prepared or able to participate in the interventions and complete the studies; they cannot be considered a secure indication of how the interventions would perform if applied across the board. So far in the UK a small pilot study has established the programme’s feasibility among a small set of families.
This leaves two of the most thoroughly researched universal prevention programmes for children of secondary school age with mixed findings of uncertain relevance to how they might perform if truly applied across the board. At least part of the problem lies in not in whether the benefits of these programmes are (or at least, can be) real, but in the difficulty of showing they are real. Verdicts in respect of drinking that public health strategies built on education and persuasion are relatively ineffective compared to measures such as restricting availability and raising price, would not be altered by the featured study. For smoking, the case for education in schools as a public health strategy is considerably stronger. Universal prevention programmes in general, and school-based programmes in particular, have greater impacts on tobacco use than on use of the other two substances featured in the study.
Some evidence supports the modest effectiveness of school programmes in preventing cannabis use. But of the four studies on which this verdict was based, one was a primary school programme not focused on substance use at all but on classroom management, education and parenting, another was conducted only among pupils for some reason excluded from mainstream education, and the programme studied in a third has since failed in a more real-world study conducted by researchers not associated with its development. The remaining study was conducted in secondary schools and concerned LifeSkills Training, but the impact on cannabis use was not statistically significant. This line up does not offer much support to drug education in mainstream secondary schools as a means of preventing cannabis use.
Mixed findings of a prevention impact from school programmes targeting substance use do not negate the possibility that general attempts to create schools conducive to healthy development will affect substance use along with other behaviours, nor do they relieve schools of the obligation to educate their pupils on this important aspect of our society. As much as the limited research, such considerations led the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to recommend that alcohol education should be an integral part of national science and health education curricula, in line with government guidance.
Thanks for their comments on this entry in draft to Richard Spoth of Iowa State University, Andrew Brown of the Drug Education Forum and David Foxcroft of Oxford Brookes University. Commentators bear no responsibility for the text including the interpretations and any remaining errors.
Last revised 02 July 2009

Source: Spoth R.L., Randall G.K., Trudeau L. et al.
Drug and Alcohol Dependence: 2008, 96(1–2), p, 57–68.

Why do otherwise good kids seem to make bad decisions when they are with their friends? New research on risk taking and the teenage brain offers some answers.
In studies at Temple University, psychologists used functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on 40 teenagers and adults to determine if there are differences in brain activity when adolescents are alone versus with their friends. The findings suggest that teenage peer pressure has a distinct effect on brain signals involving risk and reward, helping to explain why young people are more likely to misbehave and take risks when their friends are watching.
To test how the presence of peers influences risk taking, the researchers asked 14 young teenagers (ages 14 to 18), 14 college students and 12 young adults to play a six-minute video driving game while in a brain scanner. Participants were given cash prizes for completing the game in a certain time, but players had to make decisions about stopping at yellow lights, and being delayed, or racing through yellow lights, which could result in a faster time and a bigger prize, but also meant a higher risk for crashing and an even longer delay. The children and adults played four rounds of the game while undergoing the brain scan. Half the time they played alone, and half the time they were told that two same-sex friends who had accompanied them to the study were watching the play in the next room.
Among adults and college students, there were no meaningful differences in risk taking, regardless of whether friends were watching. But the young teenagers ran about 40 percent more yellow lights and had 60 percent more crashes when they knew their friends were watching. And notably, the regions of the brain associated with reward showed greater activity when they were playing in view of their friends. It was as if the presence of friends, even in the next room, prompted the brain’s reward system to drown out any warning signals about risk, tipping the balance toward the reward.
“The presence of peers activated the reward circuitry in the brain of adolescents that it didn’t do in the case of adults,” said Laurence Steinberg, an author of the study, who is a psychology professor at Temple and author of “You and Your Adolescent: The Essential Guide for Ages 10 to 25.” “We think we’ve uncovered one very plausible explanation for why adolescents do a lot of stupid things with their friends that they wouldn’t do when they are by themselves.”
Dr. Steinberg notes that the findings give a new view of peer pressure, since the peers in this experiment were not even in the same room as the teenager in the scanner.
“The subject was in the scanner, so the friends were not able to directly pressure the person to take chances,” Dr. Steinberg said. “I think it’s helpful to understand because many parents conceive of peer pressure as kids directly coercing each other into doing things. We’ve shown that just the knowledge that your friends are watching you can increase risky behavior.”
Dr. Steinberg notes that the brain system involved in reward processing is also involved in the processing of social information, explaining why peers can have such a pronounced effect on decision making. The effect is believed to be especially strong in teenagers because brain changes shortly after puberty appear to make young people more attentive and aware of what other people are thinking about them, Dr. Steinberg said.
The study results are borne out in real-world data that show teenagers have a much higher risk of car accidents when other teenagers are in the car. More study is needed to determine if the effect shown in the game study is the same when teenagers are in the presence of an opposite-sex friend or romantic interest. In the study, there were no meaningful differences in risk taking among boys and girls. However, some real-world driving data suggests that teenage boys take more risks behind the wheel when one or more boys are in the car, but drive more carefully if they are with a girlfriend.
For parents, the study data reinforce the notion that groups of teenagers need close supervision.
“All of us who have very good kids know they’ve done really dumb things when they’ve been with their friends,” Dr. Steinberg said. “The lesson is that if you have a kid whom you think of as very mature and able to exercise good judgment, based on your observations when he or she is alone or with you, that doesn’t necessarily generalize to how he or she will behave in a group of friends without adults around. Parents should be aware of that.”

Source: New York Times 5 Feb 2011

Half of all U.S. children live in a house where a parent or other adult uses tobacco, drinks heavily or uses illegal drugs, according to a report released on Tuesday.
These adults are three times more likely to abuse their children and four times more likely to neglect them than parents who do not abuse alcohol or drugs or use tobacco, said the report from Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.
“Children of alcohol and drug abusers are at increased risk of accidents, injuries and academic failure. Such children are more likely to suffer conduct disorders, depression or anxiety, conditions that increase the risk children will smoke, drink and use drugs,” the center said in a statement.
The report is an analysis of the center’s own research as well as dozens of reports from groups ranging from Alcoholics Anonymous, U.S. government surveys on families and health behavior and the Children’s Defense Fund, a nonprofit social welfare organization. It found that 35.6 million U.S. children, about half of all children in the country, live in a home where a parent or other adult uses tobacco, drinks heavily or uses illicit drugs.
More than 37 percent of U.S. children live with an adult who uses tobacco, nearly 24 percent live with a binge or heavy drinker and 12.7 percent live in a household where a parent or other adult uses illicit drugs, the report found.
Several studies show that children exposed to household cigarette smoke have a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, asthma and ear infections. They are more likely to have their tonsils or adenoids surgically removed and recent studies show they have a bigger risk of cancer and heart disease.
“If substance abusing parents are not concerned about what drugs, alcohol and tobacco are doing to themselves, they should be concerned about the ill effects they have on their children,” center Chairman Joseph Califano said.
“Children of substance abusing parents are much likelier to become substance abusers themselves,” he added.
“A child who gets through age 21 without smoking, using illegal drugs or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so.”

Source: WASHINGTON (Reuters) Mar 29, 2005

Results of a new survey into cannabis use showed that 1 in 3, 15 year olds has now smoked cannabis. 18% of pupils aged 11 to 18 had taken drugs in the previous 12 months. 13% had tried cannabis in the previous year, by the age of 15, that had risen to 31%. 28% of pupils sold they had been offered cannabis. Harder drugs like cocaine ecstasy and amphetamines had been touted to 1 in 5 schoolchildren. A Dept of Health spokesman said that the no. of pupils taking drugs had decreased slightly from 20% in 2001 to 1870 in 2002. This is all in a survey of 10000 pupils by the National Centre for Social Research and The National Centre for Educational Research.

Source: Survey of 10,000 pupils by National centre for Social Research & National centre for Educational Research. Reported in daily Mail 29 March 2003

Abstract

This study tests the impact of an in-school mediated communication campaign based on social marketing principles, in combination with a participatory, community-based media effort, on marijuana, alcohol and tobacco uptake among middle-school students. Eight media treatment and eight control communities throughout the US were randomly assigned to condition. Within both media treatment and media control communities, one school received a research-based prevention curriculum and one school did not, resulting in a crossed, split-plot design.
Four waves of longitudinal data were collected over 2 years in each school and were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models to account for clustering effects. Youth in intervention communities (N = 4216) showed fewer users at final post-test for marijuana [odds ratio (OR) = 0.50, P = 0.019], alcohol (OR = 0.40, P = 0.009) and cigarettes (OR = 0.49, P = 0.039), one-tailed. Growth trajectory results were significant for marijuana (P = 0.040), marginal for alcohol (P = 0.051) and non-significant for cigarettes (P = 0.114).
Results suggest that an appropriately designed in-school and community-based media effort can reduce youth substance uptake. Effectiveness does not depend on the presence of an in-school prevention curriculum.

Source: Health Education Research Vol. 21, Issue 1 2005

Using teacher therapists to identify problem personality traits in teenagers, and help them understand their behaviour, could be the key to stopping them binge drinking and taking drugs.
Adolescent alcohol consumption has more than doubled in the past decade and 15% of pupils reported taking drugs last year.
Addiction experts believe prevention is the key – stopping young people abusing drink and drugs before they start, instead of simply treating the addiction once it has taken hold.
Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, London, asked more than 1,000 13-year-olds at secondary schools in London to answer a range of questions about their personalities.
They were looking for pupils with four problem personality traits: negative thinking, anxiety, impulsiveness and sensation seeking.
Half of those teenagers were then given two tailored therapy sessions – one 90 minutes long, the second an hour. In small groups teenagers with particular personality traits were encouraged to explore their personalities – including strengths and difficulties.
They were encouraged to think about other ways to deal with the risks associated with that behaviour – techniques they hope the teenagers will then use when they come face to face with drink or drugs.
“It’s about coping with the trait rather than changing the personality – in no way do we ever suggest they stop being who they are or change who they are,” says Dr Patricia Conrod, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at King’s College.
“It’s changing how it is they’re coping with who they are and perhaps capitalising on some of the more positive sides of the trait and learning to manage some of its more difficult sides.”
The results, they say, speak for themselves – one study of 13 to 16-year-olds led to a 40% reduction in binge drinking and cut the chance of teenagers taking cocaine by 80%. It is the first school based programme outside the US to successfully prevent alcohol uptake and misuse in teenagers.
Students asked to give feedback about the sessions told the researchers they helped with controlling anger and dealing with negative thinking.
A second trial then looked at whether ordinary teachers, with no psychiatric training, could be taught to deliver the sessions.
Focusing on more than 20 secondary schools and another thousand pupils, it found that with little training: a three day workshop followed by three hours of supervised practice; teachers could do as good a job as the professionals.
Latest figures show that alcohol misuse currently costs the NHS around £2.7bn a year. Charities say as successful as treating an addiction can be, most do begin in adolescence, hence the need to attack the problem before it even exists.
“Prevention is important because we need to stop people progressing to much severer problems later in life,” says Nick Barton, the Chief Executive of Action on Addiction, who helped fund the study.
“We find for instance in our treatment centres that when we assess drinking or drug use history, that very often the onset was way back in adolescence, sometimes as young as 11 but certainly the period between 11 and 16 was when the first attraction to substance use took hold.”
The researchers believe this programme could be delivered with just two well trained counsellors per borough who would teach school staff how to lead the sessions.
It will cost money, they say, but in the long run a little bit of investment now to stop another generation of binge drinkers could save the NHS millions in the future.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health 25th August 2010

Media reports on illicit drugs “reduce acceptability and increase perception of risk” among young people, study finds.
Mainstream media reporting is far more likely to deter young people from using illicit drugs than encourage their use, a new Australian study has found.
But the study also found that types of reports most likely to have the strongest impact on young people – those on social and health consequences of drug taking – were underrepresented in the media.
The study by the Drug Policy Modelling Program at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of NSW, and funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, measured the impact of media reports on illicit drugs on the attitudes of over 2,000 young people aged 16 – 24.
The study also analysed 4,000 newspaper reports referring to illicit drugs and found that just over half focussed on criminal justice and legal issues, while only 24 per cent highlighted the health or social problems associated with drug taking.
Participants were shown eight different types of reports and their responses were measured.
Chief Investigator of the study Dr Caitlin Hughes, a Research Fellow at NDARC’s Drug Policy Modelling Program (DPMP), said that while drugs are one of the most common motifs in popular culture and one of the most frequently reported on there is very little research anywhere in the world on how media reporting on illicit drug issues influences attitudes or behaviour on illicit drug use..
“We know from related fields that media messages can influence people’s knowledge, attitudes and behaviour.
“It is commonly assumed that news media can incite drug use,” said Dr Hughes.
“Our research has found that the opposite is the case. Most media portrayals appear to reduce interest in illicit drugs, at least in the short term.
“They increase perceptions of risk, reduce perceptions of acceptability and reduce the reported likelihood of future drug use,” said Dr Hughes.
”But the irony is that the messages that are most effective at deterring youth interest in drugs are currently under-represented in Australian news media,” said Dr Hughes.
News items which focussed on the health and social issues – for example evidence about cannabis and psychosis or cannabis and poor educational outcomes – were more likely to have a deterrent effect than reports on drug busts and arrests.

“Our results show clearly there is an opportunity to better harness the media to shape young peoples’ attitudes to illicit drugs.
We are not saying news media is the silver bullet in drug prevention, but given news media is so pervasive we do think it ought to be recognised, both within Australian and internationally, as a potentially powerful tool for preventing illicit drug use.”

Key points:
• A total of 2,296 youth aged 16-24 years completed the survey
• All youth were shown 8 different media messages about drugs (on the two most commonly used drugs in Australia – cannabis and ecstasy)
• 66.4% and 86.5% of participants had weekly or more frequent contact with television news, online news, radio news and/or print newspapers
• Most news media messages elicited moderate to large impacts on youth attitudes. Negative health or social messages elicited large impacts on youth attitudes.
• Messages on ecstasy had greater impact on youth than messages on cannabis
• Females more likely to be deterred from use than males
• People who have never used drugs more likely to be deterred than current users
• Reports on criminal arrests significantly less persuasive than reports about negative health or social consequences
• Across all drugs, criminal justice/law enforcement topics accounted for 55% of all topics
• 60% of articles emphasised that illicit drugs lead to legal problems. 14% health problems, 10% social problems, 10% cost to society and 6% other (4% neutral and 2% benefits)
• Tabloids were more likely to emphasise legal problems: 71% compared to 61% for broadsheet
• 11 newspapers, one national, seven major metropolitan, in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth and three local in Geelong, Newcastle and Sydney were reviewed

What they said: (comments from the focus groups).
Re power of media to dissuade youth drug use:
“Media is probably one of the few ways that prevention message(s) can keep being pushed.” (20 year old female)
“When I was younger… the way that that was portrayed in the media totally shaped the way that I saw drugs.” (22 year old female)
Re fatal overdose of a young person:
“I think that would convince me not to take drugs. Just „cause……I feel sorry for her.” (17 year old male)

Source: Media reporting on illicit drugs in Australia: trends and impacts on youth attitudes to illicit drug use. Drug Policy Modelling Program, September 2010. It can be accessed through: http://www.dpmp.unsw.edu.au

Teens may smoke to “self-medicate” against depression, but researchers in Canada say smoking may increase depressive symptoms in some adolescents.

Lead author Michael Chaiton of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit of the University of Toronto and co-author Jennifer O’Loughlin of the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre say the study involved 662 high-school teenagers who completed as many as 20 questionnaires from grades 7-11 about their use of cigarettes to affect mood.

Study participants were divided into groups of: teens who never smoked; smokers who did not use cigarettes to self-medicate, improve mood or physical state; and smokers who used cigarettes to self-medicate. Study participants were asked to rate on a rating scale depressive symptoms such as: felt too tired to do things; had trouble going to sleep or staying asleep; felt unhappy, sad, or depressed; felt hopeless about the future; felt nervous or tense; and worried too much about things.

Smokers who used cigarettes as mood enhancers had higher risks of elevated depressive symptoms than teens who had never smoked, researchers concluded.

Source: Journal of Addictive Behaviors.Sept 2010

Researchers at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry say a personality-based intervention for substance abuse that was delivered by teachers was successful in reducing drinking rates, particularly binge drinking, among adolescents.

In the article titled “Personality-Targeted Interventions Delay Uptake of Drinking and Decrease Risk of Alcohol-Related Problems When Delivered by Teachers,” principal Investigator Dr. Patricia Conrod and colleagues evaluated 2,506 adolescents, with a mean age of 13.7, using the Substance Use Risk Profile scale; a 23-item questionnaire which assesses personality risk for substance abuse along four dimensions including sensation-seeking, impulsivity, anxiety-sensitivity, and hopelessness.

Of the 1,159 students identified by researchers as being at high risk for substance abuse, 624 received intervention as part of the Adventure Trial and a matched high risk group of 384 received no intervention. School based interventions consisted of two 90 minute group sessions conducted by a trained educational professional. In order to adequately evaluate the students, the teachers attended a 3-day rigorous workshop, followed by 4 hour supervision and feedback session. An 18 point checklist was used to determine whether the teachers demonstrated a good understanding of the aims and components of the programs.

Although the trial is designed to evaluate mental health symptoms, academic achievement, and substance use uptake over a 2 year period, the authors have focused their findings on the six month outcomes of drinking and binge-drinking rates, quantity by frequency of alcohol use, and drinking-related problems. Reporting on the efficacy of the intervention at six months, author and Trial Coordinator Maeve O’Leary-Barrett writes, “Receiving an intervention significantly decreased the likelihood of reporting drinking alcohol at follow-up, with the control group 1.7 times more likely to report alcohol use than the intervention group (odds ratio, 0.6).”

Furthermore, receiving an intervention also predicted significantly lower binge-drinking rates in students who reported alcohol use at baseline (odds ratio, 0.45), indicating a 55 percent decreased risk of binge-drinking in this group compared with controls. In addition, high-risk intervention-school students reported lower quantity by frequency of alcohol use and drinking-related problems compared with the non-treatment group at follow-up.

The Adventure Trial is the first to evaluate the success of the personality-targeted interventions as delivered by teachers. The findings at six months suggest that this approach may provide a sustainable school-base prevention program for youth at risk for substance abuse.

In the JAACAP article, Principal Investigator Dr. Patricia Conrod and colleagues comment on the success of their program by stating, “In-house personality-targeted interventions allow schools to implement early prevention strategies with youth most at risk for developing future alcohol-related problems and provide the potential for follow-up of the neediest individuals.”

Source: Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Sept. 2010

“This report summarises the key findings from a report exploring public attitudes towards illegal drugs and drug misuse in Scotland, based on data from the 2009 Scottish Social Attitudes survey. It focuses in particular on attitudes towards opiate misuse, and on views of potential policy responses to this. However, it also places such attitudes in the context of wider views and experiences of illegal drugs.”

Main Findings
■ Support for legalising cannabis – which increased in Scotland (as in the rest of the UK) in the late 1990s – has fallen considerably in more recent years, from 37% in 2001 to 24% in 2009. Attitudes towards prosecution for possession of cannabis for personal use also hardened between 2001 and 2009.

■ Most people said taking cocaine occasionally is wrong – 76% rated it as 4 or 5 on a scale where 5 meant ‘very seriously wrong’.

■ 45% of people agreed that ‘Most people who end up addicted to heroin have only themselves to blame’, while just 27% disagreed.

■ Around half (53%) disagreed that ‘most heroin users come from difficult backgrounds’ (29% agreed).

■ Among those in paid employment, around half (47%) said they would be ‘very’ or ‘fairly comfortable’ working alongside someone they knew had used heroin in the past, while around 1 in 5 would be uncomfortable.

■ Just a quarter (26%) said they would be comfortable with someone who was receiving help to stop using heroin moving near to them, while half (49%) would be uncomfortable.

■ There was no public consensus on what should be the top government priority for tackling heroin use in Scotland – 32% chose ‘tougher penalties for those who take heroin’, 32% ‘more help for people who want to stop using heroin’ and 28% ‘more education about drugs’.

■ Just 16% agreed that people who possess heroin for personal use should not be prosecuted (compared with 34% for cannabis).

■ Public support for providing clean needles to injecting drug users fell from 62% in 2001 to 50% in 2009.

■ Opinion on educating young people about safer drug use was split – 44% agreed that young people should be given information about how to use drugs more safely, but 40% disagreed.

■ Four out of five (80%) agreed that ‘the only real way of helping drug addicts is to get them to stop using drugs altogether’. However, 29% agreed that ‘most heroin users can never stop using drugs completely’, while 27% said they neither agreed nor disagreed or did not know.

■ 63% disagreed that ‘Someone who has been a heroin addict can never make a good parent, even if their drug problems are in the past’.

■ Around two thirds (64%) said that young children of heroin users should be placed into temporary foster care until the parents stop taking heroin. A further 1 in 5 believed the child should stay at home while the family receives help from social workers and just 8% said the child should be permanently adopted by another family.

The full report is also accessible online.

Source: http://uwsnealb.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/scottish-social-attitudes-survey-2009-public-attitudes-to-drugs-and-drug-use-in-scotland/ May 25 2010

How serious is the child and teenage alcohol problem in your area?

More than 20 children and teenagers are being treated in hospital every day for alcohol-related illnesses, including mental disorders, poisoning and liver disease, according to newly released official data.

The figures, labelled “staggering” by one of Britain’s most senior doctors, show that in the year 2005-6, during which Labour introduced 24-hour drinking, the number of under-18s seeking treatment for alcohol-related health problems leapt by 13% to 8,894, an average of 24 a day.

The research, released in parliament by Caroline Flint, the health minister, shows that the number treated has gone up by 33% since Labour came to power in 1997.

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “This is a staggering rise and it is only the tip of the iceberg.
“Drinks sold by supermarkets and off-licences are cheaper than ever, and those shops have been at the front of the queue for 24-hour licences, so it has never been more available.

“The younger they drink, the more likely they are to have alcohol-related problems later in life. It is now commonplace to see men and women in their twenties with end-stage alcoholic liver damage.”
The disease figures released by Flint do not include those people treated for injuries sustained in incidents such as drunken fights or drink-driving.

Separately, the government has released figures for patients treated for alcohol-related conditions in accident and emergency wards, showing that alcohol-related medical emergencies and hospital treatments have doubled since 1997.

In some parts of the country the rise is even steeper. The worst areas include the region formerly covered by Cheshire and Merseyside Strategic Health Authority, where 742 young people were treated last year, a rise of more than 25% in just a year. In Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, the number went up by a quarter.
By contrast, some southern health authorities experienced an improvement. In Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, for example, there were only 119 cases, a fall of 30%.

In addition to the figures for children and teenagers, the Department of Health data also show that the number of people aged 18 and over treated for alcohol-related illness has gone up from 124,925 to 253,603 since 1997, a rise of more than 100%.
The data, released in a written answer, appear to contradict the government’s claims that the liberalisation of pub opening and supermarket off-sales time would lead to more responsible drinking.

They bear out research published earlier this year by the British Association for Emergency Medicine, which found an increase in alcohol-related injuries treated in hospital among all age groups since the change to the drinking laws.

Ahead of its launch of 24-hour opening in November 2005, the government assured voters that there would be tougher controls on underage drinking.
It announced on-the-spot fines for children buying alcohol and tougher penalties for staff serving them.
Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, said at the time: “The result will be more freedom for responsible adults and tougher treatment for the yobbish minority.”

Labour’s approach to teenage drinking has not always lived up to the responsible image that it likes to project.
In the run-up to the 2001 general election, the party sent text messages to first-time voters telling them, “Don’t give a XXXX for last orders? Vote Labour”. This was an allusion to advertisements for Castlemaine XXXX, the Australian beer.

Dr Gray Smith-Laing, a consultant at the Medway Maritime hospital in Gillingham, Kent, who treats patients with liver disease, said last week: “What we’re seeing is the numbers going up, the age coming down.

“The idea that (24-hour opening) just smooths out the drinking and people drink the same amount over a longer period of time is complete rubbish.”
The Department of Health says that levels of binge drinking have peaked and new facilities such as walk-in centres could explain the growth in treatment for drink-related injuries.

The department said yesterday: “The increased attendances at A&E departments, as seen in recently published figures, began some years ago. Evidence suggests that increased rate of growth of attendances predates the change in licensing laws by several years. In fact, this year growth has actually slowed.”

SOURCE: POSTED BY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS UK AT 7:50 AM MON 25.12.06

MULTIPLE DRUG USE NOW THE NORM, HEROIN SHUNNED BY YOUNG
Government drug policy is too centred on heroin abuse, fails to take account of the realities of current usage trends and needs to focus on individual user behaviour if it is to reflect the true picture and formulate meaningful responses, a leading academic at National University of Ireland Maynooth urged.
‘A Dizzying Array of Substances; An Ethnographic Study of Drug Use in the Canal Communities’ is the result of a long-term study which closely examined the realities of drug use in local life of Rialto, Bluebell and Inchicore, three communities served by the Canal Communities Local Drugs Task Force. It was led by principal investigator Dr A Jamie Saris and primary field researcher Fiona O’Reilly at the Department of Anthropology, NUI Maynooth.
The ethnographic research, carried out mostly in 2008 and early 2009, gives the most compelling evidence to date that multiple drug use is the norm amongst drug users in the Canal Communities and, the researchers concluded, most probably in other areas.
“The big problem is that as far as government is concerned, ‘drugs’, from a treatment perspective, has traditionally meant heroin. Thus, the apparent leveling off of the need for a very opiate-centric treatment service in the Canal Communities in recent years is deceptive” said Dr Saris.
Besides the ethnographic work, the study surveyed, on a long term basis, 92 people using either heroin or methadone in the study area. Unsurprisingly most of those surveyed were on methadone (98%). Of those surveyed:
•63% claimed to have used heroin in the previous three months
•30% had used crack cocaine
•22% had used powder cocaine
•46% had also taken street tranquilisers
•50% were on prescribed tranquillisers, and
•60% had also smoked cannabis within the past three months.
“The majority of those registered on the methadone treatment programme are also using a cocktail of other substances, very often including heroin. Multiple drug use is the reality for nearly all users, and official policy needs to have this understanding at its centre”, Saris said.
In the course of their study, the research team also noted a strong stigma against heroin use amongst the 16-25 age group who still regularly used a lot of other substances, including cocaine and off-label prescription medication. “The reality is that these people are difficult for a treatment infrastructure built around opiates to service. If they have issues, they are more difficult to address,” said Saris.
” The stress that policy-makers and community activists place on ‘crack’ or ‘heroin’ or any other single drug as clear and present social dangers obscures the ubiquity of polydrug use. It makes it appear that these users are very different from other drug-users in the rest of society including cannabis and recreational cocaine users, and it also obscures how commonly legal pharmaceuticals, such as benzodiazepines, even methadone itself, are regularly consumed ‘illegally’.”
He said that a focus on drug use alone is the mistake. “The lives we examined, however damaged by an attraction to certain pharmaceuticals, are rarely defined solely by such behaviour. These people are also sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, partners and lovers, as well as employees and community members. This sensibility does in fact inform a lot of local community activities aimed at assisting users, but such work is often difficult to justify to official funders under the rubric of ‘treatment’, as currently understood. Unless we can understand who users are, what they are taking and why, we will not be able to assign the appropriate resources, treatments or management systems.”
Tony MacCarthaigh, chairperson of the Canal Communities Local Drugs Task Force commented that “individuals and not chemicals need to become the focal point of treatment, and treatment needs to assist individuals in developing another orientation not just to drugs, but to life”.
Source: www.addictiontoday.org 9th July 2010

Monitoring the Future survey shows that while marijuana continues to be the most commonly used illicit drug among teens in the USA, current use of marijuana has dropped by 25 also dropped by seven percent among all three grades combined. Teen use of amphetamines, particularly methamphetamine, dropped significantly in five years and year-over-year, between 2005 and 2006, with less than one percent of teens having used it in the past 30 days.

The survey also noted reductions in the following drug categories between 2001 and 2006, including:

** Marijuana use is down in all categories for all grades combined. Lifetime, past year, and past 30 day use decreased 18 percent, 20 percent, and 25 percent (from 35% to 29%; 26% to 22%; and 17% to 13%, respectively).

** Use of cigarettes is down since 2001 in all four use categories (lifetime, past month, daily, and more than one-half pack per day) in all three grades.

** Youth use of alcohol was also down across the board – in all five use categories (lifetime, past year, past month, daily, and more than five drinks in a row in the last two weeks) and in all three grades over five years.

** Lifetime use of steroids for teens declined among all three grades, with past year and past month use also down among 8th and 10th graders.

Source: Source: nyac@TheAntiDrug.com Dec 2006

Combined data from SAMHSA’s 2002 to 2005 National Surveys on Drug Use & Health found an annual average of 1.1 million (4.5%) youths aged 12 to 17 used an inhalant in the 12 months prior to being surveyed. About 2.6% of all youth who had not used inhalants before were new users (that is, had used an inhalant for the first time in the past year. The annual average of new users was 600,000 youth (289,000 males and 311,000 females).
The types of inhalants most frequently mentioned as having been used in the past year by new users were: glue, shoe polish, or toluene (30.5%), gasoline or lighter fluid (25.3%), nitrous oxide or “whippets” (23.9%), and spray paints (23.5%).
Among new inhalants users, females were more likely than males to have used: glue, shoe polish, or toluene (34.9% vs. 25.8%); spray paints (26.1% vs. 20.8%); aerosol sprays other than spray paints (23.0% vs. 16.4%); correction fluid, degreaser, or cleaning fluid (23.4% vs. 13.6%); and amy nitrite, “poppers,” locker room odorizers, or “rush” (18.2% vs. 11.6%).
New male inhalant users were more likely than females to have used nitrous oxide or “whippets” (29.0% vs.19.3%). Between 2002 and 2005, use of nitrous oxide or whippets declined among new inhalant users (from 31.6% to 21.3% in 2005). In contrast, use of aerosol sprays other than spray paints doubled from 12.6% of new inhalant using youth in 2002 to 25.4% of new inhalant using youth in 2005.

Source: The NSDUH Report: Patterns and Trends in Inhalant Use by Adolescent Males and Females, 2002-2005

Brief skills training is effective to curb college drinking
A study in Swedish colleges, where over-use of alcohol is widespread, showed that a Brief Skills Training Program was effective in reducing alcohol consumption over a two-year period.

Students were randomly assigned to a brief skills training program (BSTP) with interactive lectures and discussions, a twelve-step–influenced (TSI) program with didactic lectures by therapists trained in the 12-step approach, and a control group. More than three quarters of the students were rated “high risk” on an alcohol consumption score.

At follow-up two years later, the high-risk students who had received the BSTP program showed significantly better outcomes than high-risk students who had undergone TSI. The TSI students did no better than the control group.

Source:The study results are in the March issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental

April 5, 2007

A new study finds that teaching teens ‘competence skills’ — such as good self-management and positive psychological characteristics — can effectively reduce adolescent alcohol and other drug use.
Health News Digest reported April 4 that the study from Weill Cornell Medical College researchers found competence skills can protect teens from social risk factors for substance abuse, including having friends who use alcohol, tobacco, or illicit drugs.
Researchers who studied a group of 1,500 (mostly Hispanic) adolescents from New York City over a period of three years found that those with high refusal-assertiveness marks and sound decision-making skills were less likely to smoke or use multiple substances, even when they had friends or siblings who did.
“The take-home message from these findings is that competence skills matter in our understanding of substance use,” says study author Jennifer A. Epstein of the Division of Prevention and Health Behavior at Weill Cornell. “They can combat powerful social influences from friends and siblings to use multiple substances, including cigarettes. Moreover, this research provides important support for drug-abuse prevention programs that include the teaching of competence skills, including refusal skills and decision-making skills.”
“Students need to be encouraged to develop competence skills to resist drugs, since social and other risk factors can never be entirely eliminated,” added Gilbert Botvin, senior author of the report and developer of the Life Skills Training prevention program.
The study was published in the issue of the journal

Source: journal: Addictive Behaviors. April 2007

Research Summary

Smoking among young adults has plummeted since California implemented a groundbreaking tobacco-control plan 12 years ago, according to new research from the University of California at San Diego.

The California Tobacco Control Program, established in 1989, has been credited with reducing smoking among all adult smokers, but the decline among young adults has been especially striking, researchers said. Notably, cessation rates among young Californians were higher than among young adults in New York and New Jersey, which have similarly high tobacco prices but lack comprehensive stop-smoking campaigns, as well as compared to young adults in tobacco-growing states (TGS).

“We were surprised to find that, since the advent of the California campaign, young people have increased their rate of quitting by 50 percent, far more than their older counterparts,” said study author Karen Messer, Ph.D. “It used to be that smokers over age 50 were the ones quitting because they understood the health consequences of smoking …
“These young adults have grown up in a tobacco-controlled climate, where smoking isn’t the norm and isn’t socially supported. We may be seeing the first generation who believe it’s not cool to smoke, which could pay huge dividends in their future health.”

Another UCLA study focused on tobacco consumption trends. “We found that there is a national trend of declining cigarette consumption for all age groups, but the most significant by far was observed in California smokers over age 35,” noted researcher Wael K. Al-Delaimy, M.D., Ph.D.
“The data suggest that — compared with states with no tobacco control initiatives (TGS) or states with an increased cigarette price as the principal tobacco control measure (NY/NJ) – California’s comprehensive tobacco control program is more effective in decreasing cigarette consumption for those over age 35.”

Source: journal Tobacco Control April 2007

A Temple University psychologist argues that society would be better off using strict laws to prevent risky behaviors by adolescents rather than education programs, saying that teens’ brains are too immature to avoid risk-taking, USA Today reported April 5.
“We need to rethink our whole approach to preventing teen risk,” said researcher Laurence Steinberg, who drew his conclusions after reviewing a decade’s worth of research on the adolescent brain. “Adolescents are at an age where they do not have full capacity to control themselves. As adults, we need to do some of the controlling.”
Steinberg said society would be best served by raising the driving age, increasing cigarette prices, and enforcing underage-drinking laws than investing in prevention programs. “I don’t believe the problem behind teen risky behavior is a lack of knowledge,” he said. “The programs do a good job in teaching kids the facts. Education alone doesn’t work. It doesn’t seem to affect their behavior.”
“Kids will sign drug pledges. They really mean that, but when they get in a park on a Friday night with their friends, that pledge is nowhere to be found in their brain structure,” agreed psychologist Michael Bradley. “They’re missing the neurologic brakes that adults have.”
Isabel Sawhill, co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said the findings are “good research for policymakers to consider, but we shouldn’t infer from this research that all our past efforts have been ineffective. I’m not in favor of just doing education, but I’m also not in favor of not doing it, either. We need to do some of both.”

Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science. April 2007

Young men are three times more likely to die from alcohol-related injuries than females. To make matters worse, new research released today shows that they do not respond to school-based drug education as well as their female counterparts.
Delivery of a new school-based program has resulted in lower alcohol consumption, less binge drinking and less alcohol-related harms – but only in females.
CLIMATE Schools: Alcohol Module was developed and trialled by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at the University of NSW. Researcher, Ms Laura Vogl, found that the findings were consistent with the results of many other school-based drug prevention programs.
“Males are a much harder group to reach,” Ms Vogl said. “It is common knowledge that alcohol use generally increases from the early to late teenage years. This program was effective in subduing this growth. Twelve months after the program was delivered it was clear that the CLIMATE program had subdued the growth of alcohol use and harm for females.”
After one year, students who did not get the CLIMATE program reported:
o Twice the increase in average weekly alcohol consumption compared with the students who received the CLIMATE program.
o A fives times greater increase in the frequency of binge drinking compared with the students who received the CLIMATE program.
o Twice the increase in the maximum number of drinks consumed during these binging occasions, and
o A five times greater increase in the number of alcohol-related harms experienced in the previous 12 months compared with the students who received the CLIMATE program

CLIMATE Schools: Alcohol Module was developed by NDARC in collaboration with the Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety and Depression and secondary school teachers. This program was trialled with over 1,500 Year 8 students in Catholic and Independent schools. This innovative program uses a computerised cartoon-based teenage drama to teach young people skills to minimise alcohol consumption and reduce the risk of harm.
The program was successful in teaching all young people, both males and females, the knowledge to minimise alcohol-related harm. It was also effective in moderating students’

beliefs regarding the positive benefits of alcohol. Students were far less likely to glamorise the effects of alcohol after they had completed the CLIMATE program.
However, when it came to behaviour change, it was only female students who changed their behaviour.
For the boys, the CLIMATE program was no more effective in changing alcohol use behaviour than the standard alcohol prevention education currently being delivered in the control schools.
Ms Vogl said that there could be a number of reasons to explain this result.
”The Australian Alcohol Guidelines were used in the program and these state that males can drink more alcohol than females to stay at low risk,” explained Ms Vogl. ”Currently, many young females drink similar amounts to their male counterparts. Pointing out to young women that they cannot actually drink as much alcohol for the same level of risk, may have been a shock for many and made them rethink their behaviour.“
Drinking and the experience of alcohol-related harm is often seen as a badge of honour or sign of manhood and could be a contributing factor to the gender differences.
“If a male student is involved in a fight, he may be viewed as a hero. Likewise, if a male has unplanned sex whilst under the influence of alcohol, he may be viewed as a stud. By contrast, if a female accidentally falls pregnant while under the influence of alcohol, she may be viewed as promiscuous. If she vomits in a public place as a result of drinking, the consequences can be dire.”
Traditionally, male socialisation and friendships also revolve more closely around alcohol than that of females. For alcohol prevention interventions to be effective with male students a broader range of alcohol related beliefs may need to be targeted.
Research has suggested that it may be necessary to focus on the negative sexual effects of alcohol, such as erectile dysfunction, to achieve success. The only obstacle to this is that it may be considered inappropriate to teach this in Year 7 and 8 of high school, when alcohol prevention education needs to be implemented.
“Alcohol-related harm is a major concern during adolescence, especially for males. Effective alcohol prevention programs do exist and in many cases are the ones implemented in schools. However, greater time needs to be given for more intensive interventions with the hope of more effectively changing the behaviour of young males.”
ends

Source: NDARC. Univ. of New South Wales. Australia February 25 2007

• Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States.
• New research shows that the use and misuse of alcohol and marijuana are influenced by a common set of genes.
Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States. Roughly eight to 12 percent of marijuana users are considered “dependent” and, just like alcohol, the severity of symptoms increases with heavier use. A new study has found that use and misuse of alcohol and marijuana are influenced by a common set of genes.
Results will be published in the March 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.
“Results from a large annual survey of high-school students show that in 2008, 41.8 percent of 12th graders reported having used marijuana,” explained Carolyn E. Sartor, a research instructor at Washington University School of Medicine and corresponding author for the study. “Although many may have used the drug on only a few occasions, 5.4 percent of 12th graders reported using it daily within the preceding month.”
“The active ingredient in marijuana is THC, which mimics natural cannabinoids that the brain produces,” added Christian Hopfer, associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “The cannabinoid system is critical for learning, memory, appetite, and pain perception. Most users of marijuana will not develop an ‘addiction’ to it, but perhaps one in 12 will. What is not commonly appreciated about marijuana use is that strong evidence has emerged that it increases the risk of developing mental illnesses and possibly exacerbates pre-existing mental illnesses.”
“Like any drug, marijuana can be used in a way that negatively impacts quality of life, interfering with functioning at school or work or leading to problems with family and friends,” said Sartor. “Although at least three of six symptoms listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) are needed to meet full criteria for cannabis (marijuana) dependence … the presence of even one or two of these symptoms could create distress or interfere with day-to-day functioning. There is strong evidence for a genetic component to use and dependence on marijuana as well as alcohol, and the use (and misuse) of these substances frequently occur together.”
Researchers examined 6,257 individuals (2,761 complete twin pairs and 735 singletons) listed in the Australian Twin Registry, 24 to 36 years of age. Alcohol and marijuana use histories were gathered in telephone diagnostic interviews and used to derive levels of alcohol consumption, frequency of marijuana use, and DSM-IV alcohol and cannabis dependence symptoms.
“Our findings indicate that … many of the same genetic factors that contribute to alcohol use also contribute to marijuana use,” said Sartor. “Likewise, alcohol dependence symptoms and cannabis dependence symptoms can be traced to some of the same genetic influences. For both alcohol and marijuana, the majority of genetic factors that contribute to use also contribute to dependence symptoms.”
“In other words,” said Hopfer, “the genetic influences on drug use are not specific to individual drugs, but seem to influence a general tendency to engage in drug use. This is important to note because there is a tendency to study drugs in isolation – alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, etc. These findings add support to the notion of common mechanisms underlying all addictions.”
“The fact that very little of the environmental influences on alcohol and marijuana use, or on alcohol and cannabis dependence symptoms, could be traced to common sources indicates that there may be important distinctions between those environmental factors that influence alcohol-related outcomes and those that influence marijuana-related outcomes,” said Sartor. “Identifying alcohol- and marijuana-specific risk factors is an important next step in this line of research.”
“Marijuana research is relatively sparse compared to alcohol or nicotine research,” added Hopfer. “However, if you look at reports of at least adolescents and young people using, it becomes clear that marijuana use, including daily marijuana use, is quite common and the effects of this are not well understood. The mental illness/marijuana connection has not received much press, although I think the evidence has grown substantially that marijuana is a causal risk factor for the development of mental illness.”

Source: http://www.attcnetwork.org/explore/priorityareas/science/tools/asmeDetails.asp?ID=643

Research Summary

The more parents expect their teens to engage in risky behaviors such as drinking and using drugs, the more likely their teens are to follow through with those behaviors, Reuters reported Oct. 16.
Researchers found that adolescents with mothers who expected them to be more rebellious and take greater risks reported higher levels of risky behavior than other adolescents during follow-up surveys.
On the other hand, parents may lower the rate of risky behavior among their adolescent children by expecting that they can resist negative peer pressure and instead engage in positive behavior, according to the study.
“Parents who believe they are simply being realistic might actually contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said study author and Wake Forest University psychology professor Christy Buchanan. “By thinking risk-taking or rebelliousness is normal for teenagers and conveying that to their children, parents might add to other messages from society that make teenagers feel abnormal if they are not willing to take risks or break laws.”
The study’s recommendations for parents included modeling good behavior for their teens, exposing them to examples of positive things that other teens are doing, and making sure their teens know there are consequences to risky behavior.
The study was based on surveys of more than 200 6th- and 7th-graders and their mothers.
Source: Journal of Research on Adolescence. June 2009

The truth youth anti-smoking campaign has the power to save hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in smoking related health care costs and productivity losses, according to the Citizens’ Commission to Protect the Truth, a group composed of every former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and Health and Human Services with the exception of Michael Leavitt; every former U.S. Surgeon General; and every former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine indicated that the medical care costs averted by the truth® campaign – due to prevention of smoking – were far greater than the costs of the campaign itself and found that for every dollar invested in truth®, it is estimated that society saved over $6.80. The study focused on the period of 2000–2002. During this period of time, the truth® campaign has been credited with reducing the number of children and teen smokers by 300,000.
We believe that if the truth® campaign continues for another five years (2009-2014) with similar effectiveness, there will be up to 500,000 fewer youth smokers with savings of up to $9.0 billion in future medical costs.
The Commission based its analysis on the findings of the study presented in the May 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, which found that the decrease in the number of youth who initiated smoking as a result of truth® during the period of 2000–2002 may result in averting up to $5.4 billion in future medical costs.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one-third of young smokers will die prematurely from smoking-related diseases. Since 80% of adult smokers began using tobacco products before the age of 18, the hundreds of thousands of children who opt not to smoke because of their exposure to truth® will almost certainly not become adult smokers.
“Ending smoking by American children and teens is crucial to the health and cost of healthcare to our nation. The truth® campaign provides a return on investment that would make the greediest corporate CEOs salivate. The truth® campaign is one of the most effective investments in the history of public health,” said Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Commission Chairman and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare who started the national anti-smoking campaign in 1978. “truth® is the only national smoking prevention campaign not directed by the tobacco industry which exposes the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction, and the health effects and social consequences of smoking.”
The American Legacy Foundation’s life-saving truth® campaign is the largest national youth smoking prevention campaign and an extraordinary public health story. The campaign is a national peer-to-peer intervention that works. In its first two years, truth® was responsible for 22% of the overall decline in youth smoking—a decrease which represents approximately 300,000 fewer smokers. Peer reviewed studies, both old and new, underscore that truth® can inoculate teens against tobacco addiction. The truth® campaign’s successes are unassailable.
Source : Citizens Commission to Protect the Truth April 19, 2009

According to details given by the NHS, there has been a 65 per cent increase in people receiving treatment for cocaine addiction in UK. These are teenagers which is cause of concern.
These figures correspond to the announcement by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) earlier. It was found by an NHS study, conducted by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, that the number these teenagers has doubled since 2005.
It was reported that users were combining cocaine with alcohol that causes more damage to the heart and makes users more violent. It was noticed that a six-month treatment treated four in 10 people and they were no longer addicted, but several left the treatment midway.
In England, about 12,354 people were treated for cocaine addiction last year. Between 2005-06 and 2008-09 a rise was seen in the number of people coming for treatment and the figures increased from 453 to 745, and the number of 18- to 24-year-olds doubled from 1,586 to 3,005.
The chairman of the ACMD, Professor Les Iversen stated, “The figures were deeply concerning.”
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both stated that a change was needed in the government’s approach to tackling addiction.

Source: www.topnews.net.nz 3rdMarch 2010

A new American study suggests that parental monitoring can help bring down the cases of marijuana use by adolescents.
Psychologists Andrew Lac and William Crano of the Claremont Graduate University examined various studies to find the connection between parental monitoring (when parents know where their children are, what company are they in and what they are doing) and adolescent marijuana use.
Lac and Crano selected 17 studies containing data on over 35,000 participants. They assessed parental monitoring on the basis of admissions made by adolescent themselves and not their parents’ reports of keeping an eye on their children. The researchers found a strong link between parental monitoring and the decreased use of marijuana by adolescents.
The authors write: “Our review suggests that parents are far from irrelevant, even when it comes to an illegal and often secretive behavior on the part of their children.” They also believe that their analysis might come in handy for marijuana-prevention programs that are aimed at parents.
The findings of the review have been published in the latest issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. (ANI)

Source: Health Wise November 17th, 2009

A new Australian study suggests that parental encouragement leads to alcoholism in teenagers. The latest MBF Healthwatch survey found that 63percent of Aussies in the higher income bracket approve of alcohol consumption by 15 to 17 year olds at home under the eyes of parents.
“Our survey suggests many Australians believe it’s acceptable to buy alcohol for teenagers and allow them to drink under parental supervision at home,” Bupa Australia Chief Medical Officer, Dr Christine Bennett, said.
Dr Bennett continued: “Some parents may think this is harmless; some may see this approach as a way to teach their teenage children about socially responsible drinking. But we want parents to understand that early exposure may actually be doing them damage. “Evidence suggests that the earlier the age that alcohol is introduced, the greater the risk of long-term alcohol related health problems.
“Binge drinking in young people is on the rise. Too much alcohol impairs young people’s judgement, which can lead to violence, injury and build a pattern of use that leads to lifetime dependence. “It’s shocking to think that one teenager a week dies of alcohol abuse. We teach children about the harmful effects of smoking, unsafe sex and taking illicit drugs, but we also need to teach them about the damage that alcohol can do.”
The survey also found that people’s acceptance of supervised underage drinking was closely related to their income levels. Nearly 63percent people earning over 100,000 dollars approved supervised drinking; 53percent people with incomes between 70,001 to 100,000 dollars were comfortable with the idea followed by 48percent people getting paychecks ranging from 40,001 to 70,000 dollars.
Dr Bennett added: “Given that social drinking is a common part of the Australian culture, our challenge is to help our young people learn how to enjoy alcohol in a socially responsible way and protect them from harm now and in the long-term.
“That will mean educating young people about the risks of underage drinking and, as parents and a community, being good role models.”

Source: Health News Dec. 3rd 2009

Children, whose parents allow them to have alcohol at home in a bid to teach responsible drinking, drink even more outside of home, a new study claims.
A study of 428 Dutch families has found that teens who drank under their parents’ watch or on their own were at a greater risk of developing alcohol-related problems. The researchers insists that the study puts into question the advice of some experts who recommend that parents drink with their teenage children with the aim of limiting their drinking outside of the home.
Dr. Haske van der Vorst, the lead researcher on the study, said: “The idea is generally based on common sense. For example, the thinking is that if parents show good behavior-here, modest drinking-then the child will copy it. Another assumption is that parents can control their child’s drinking by drinking with the child.” Every family, which was quizzed, had two children between the ages of 13 and 15. Parents and teens completed questionnaires on drinking habits at the outset and again one and two years later.
The researchers found that, in general, the more teens drank at home, the more they tended to drink elsewhere; the reverse was also true, with out-of-home drinking leading to more drinking at home.
In addition, teens who drank more often, whether in or out of the home, tended to score higher on a measure of problem drinking two years later.
Haske van der Vorst, of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands concluded: “I would advise parents to prohibit their child from drinking, in any setting or on any occasion. “If parents want to reduce the risk that their child will become a heavy drinker or problem drinker in adolescence, they should try to postpone the age at which their child starts drinking.” (ANI)

Source: Health News. Jan 28th 2010

Background: Prevention interventions that focus on the impact of social influences, making healthy choices, and promoting anti-substance abusing norms have proven effective in reducing adolescent drug use. The school-based drug abuse prevention program Life Skills Training (LST) teaches a variety of cognitive-behavioral skills for problem-solving and decisionmaking, resisting media influences, managing stress and anxiety, communicating effectively, developing healthy personal relationships, and asserting one’s rights. Researchers wanted to know if these strategies may also be successfully applied to combat adolescent delinquency, verbal and physical aggression, and fighting.

Study Design: Researchers introduced LST to 2,374 students in 20 New York City public and parochial schools, and established a comparable control group. Sample composition was 39 percent African-American, 33 percent Hispanic, 10 percent White; 55 percent economically disadvantaged; and 30 percent living in mother-only households.

What They Found: After 15 school-based sessions, delinquency and frequent fighting were significantly reduced across the entire intervention group.

Comments from the Authors: This study supports the idea that multiple problem behaviors may have common causes. It further suggests that the development of comprehensive, integrated school-based approaches to prevention may more efficiently target an array of related behaviors, thereby reducing the burden on resources and increasing the likelihood for adoption and implementation.

What’s Next: More research is needed to test the durability of the LST approach. It would also be useful to determine if these strategies can prevent more serious forms of violence, such as assault and homicide.

Publication: The study, led by Dr. Gilbert J. Botvin of the Department of Public Health at Weill Cornell University Medical College, was published in volume 7, pages 403-408 (2006) of Prevention Science.

Source: NIDA 27th Aug.2007

Oct 8, 2007 in alcohol, hospital
Tags: risky drinking, teenage binge drinking
The Telegraph:
One in seven people taken to hospital for drinking too much in the past year was under 14 years old, according to new figures.
A total of 2,239 under-14s were given treatment in A&E suffering from the effects of alcohol over the past 12 months, a study found – one in seven of the total under 59 admitted.
The revelations about the scale of underage drinking led to renewed calls for a clampdown on alcohol advertising seemingly targeted at children.
The last time The Telegraph looked at this issue (February 2007) they found there were 7,596 admissions involving 16- to 19-year-olds. The Guardian in June this year were reporting “that last year 5,280 children younger than 16 were admitted because of their drinking – of whom 59% were girls”. Previously (November 2006) the BBC had said they had found out there were “20 cases a day of under-18s diagnosed with conditions like alcohol poisoning.”

Source: Daily Dose 13th Oct.2007

In this national fellowship report, project directors from the first 10 Reclaiming Futures sites share the lessons they learned in creating and implementing a model for helping teens in trouble overcome drugs, alcohol and crime.

The directors offer specific steps for planning and instigating the changes, provide real-life examples from diverse communities across the nation, and provide a road map for communities to adopt the six-step model all at once or one step at a time.

The report recommends screening each teen for drug and alcohol problems, assessing the severity of his/her drug and alcohol use, providing prompt access to a treatment plan coordinated by a service team; and connecting the teen with employers, mentors, and volunteer service projects.

The report describes how judges, probation officers, treatment specialists, families and community members can take steps right now to improve the future of these youth.

Upon completion of a brief survey, the full report is available as a PDF to download at no cost.

http://www.reclaimingfutures.org/?q=judicial_report_survey&reportname=ProjectDirectors

Publication Year: 2007

Publisher

Reclaiming Futures
Portland State University
527 SW Hall, Suite 400
Portland, or 97201
Phone: 503.725.8911
Website: http://www.reclaimingfutures.org

Children and adolescents who abuse alcohol or are sexually active are more likely to take methamphetamines (MA), also known as ‘meth’ or ‘speed’. New research reveals the risk factors associated with MA use, in both low-risk children (those who don’t take drugs) and high-risk children (those who have taken other drugs or who have ever attended juvenile detention centres).

MA is a stimulant, usually smoked, snorted or injected. It produces sensations of euphoria, lowered inhibitions, feelings of invincibility, increased wakefulness, heightened sexual experiences, and hyperactivity resulting from increased energy for extended periods of time. According to the lead author of this study, Terry P. Klassen of the University of Alberta, Canada, “MA is produced, or ‘cooked’, quickly, reasonably simply, and cheaply by using legal and readily available ingredients with recipes that can be found on the internet”.
Because of the low cost, ready availability and legal status of the drug, long-term use can be a serious problem. In order to assess the risk factors that are associated with people using MA, Klassen and his team carried out an analysis of twelve different medical studies, combining their results to get a bigger picture of the MA problem. They said, “Within the low-risk group, there were some clear patterns of risk factors associated with MA use. A history of engaging in behaviors such as sexual activity, alcohol consumption and smoking was significantly associated with MA use among low-risk youth. Engaging in these kinds of behaviors may be a gateway for MA use or vice versa. A homosexual or bisexual lifestyle is also a risk factor.”
Amongst high-risk youth, the risk factors the authors identified were, “growing up in an unstable family environment (e.g., family history of crime, alcohol use and drug use) and having received treatment for psychiatric conditions. Among high-risk youth, being female was also a risk factor”.

Source: BMC Pediatrics (2008, October 29). Methamphetamine Abuse Linked To Underage Sex, Smoking And Drinking. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 12, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com

By LINDSAY McINTOSH

THE antisocial effects of underage drinking are felt by communities across Scotland, with some areas becoming no-go zones on Friday and Saturday nights as a result.
But the real cost of the country’s child drink shame is human, with some youngsters killing themselves with booze.

Just over a year ago, the body of schoolgirl Naomi Thomson was found at a friend’s house in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire.
Her death certificate says the fatality is “unexplained”, but it lists “probable acute alcohol intoxication”. It is believed the 14-year-old drank herself to death at a sleepover party.

In February 2002, Craig Ritchie, 13, died after taking part in a secret drinking session with friends. He choked on his own vomit and suffered a heart attack. He was admitted to hospital in a coma and was declared dead ten days later. The pupil at Aberdeen’s Kincorth Academy had been drinking cider with a group of friends in Cove on the city’s outskirts.

In December 2005, two 13-year-old girls were found drunk and unconscious on a snow-covered street after going to an under-18s disco. One was on the brink of death when police officers discovered the scantily clad girls in Westhill, Aberdeenshire. The teenager did not come round for six hours after being treated for hypothermia and alcohol intoxication at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

Earlier this month, two girls of the same age were found on the streets in “mortal danger”, according to police. The pair had handed over their pocket money to a man to buy them alcohol from an off- licence in Livingston. Police said they could have lost their way and fallen unconscious which, combined with the cold weather, might have had fatal consequences. During an eight-hour blitz on the town, officers found six “heavily drunk” youths and took them to the police station to sober them up.

The definition of “under-age” sank to a shocking low this October, when community wardens in Cowie, Stirlingshire, caught a boy of seven swigging from a bottle of strong cider. Alcohol campaigners said the youngster could have died if he had drunk the whole one-litre bottle.

Wardens said they found young people openly drinking in the village streets, in flagrant disregard of local by-laws.

Jack Law, chief executive of the Alcohol Focus Scotland charity, said at the time: “Under-age drinking is a massive problem in Scotland, but we are obviously shocked at the age of this child. “There is evidence children find it relatively easy to access alcohol from adults. But these people need to realise there could be serious consequences.”

Under-age drinking is not only a pastime of children from deprived backgrounds. In the summer of 2000, Euan Blair, 16-year-old son of then-prime minister Tony Blair, was held for being drunk and incapable in Trafalgar Square. An ambulance was called for the teenager, as police were worried about his condition. He had been vomiting but did not require hospital treatment. The youngster had been at a post-exam celebration and gave a false name and address to police but was released without charge.
Source: The Scotsman 27 December 2007

Current figures underestimate the number of children who may be at risk of harm from parental substance use. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Public Health have generated new estimates using five national surveys which include measures of binge, hazardous and dependent drinking, illicit drug use and mental health.

Previous UK estimates were that 250-350,000 children live with problem drug users and 780,000 – 1.3 million with problem drinkers. However, the problem, according to the researchers, is that “these estimates are based on drug users in treatment or derive from problem drinking estimates in other countries.” The study, funded by Action on Addiction and the Wates Foundation and conducted by Dr Victoria Manning and colleagues at the National Addiction Centre, entailed a secondary analysis of national household surveys that enabled a focus on parenting and substance use. The new figures indicate that approximately 3.4 million children in the UK live with at least one binge drinking parent, 2.6 million with a hazardous drinker and around one million with a parent who uses illicit drugs.
Manning said: “In order to meet the needs of both parental substance misusers and their children, we first need to understand the true nature and scale of the problem. Without knowing the number of potentially at-risk families, we are unable to assist them until they come to the attention of agencies at crisis point.”
Around 335,000 children were estimated to be living with a drug dependent user, 72,000 with an injecting drug user, and 108,000 with an adult who had overdosed. The authors suggest the risk of harm may increase for the 500,000 children living with parents who have both mental health and substance misuse problems. According to Manning, “Whilst harm from parental substance use is not inevitable, we need to raise awareness of how recreational substance use, and in particular binge episodes, can affect parenting capacity. Substance use affects our judgement, emotions and how we respond to situations. Parental substance misuse can lead to inadequate child monitoring, modelling behaviour and poor standards of child care.”
The authors encourage the involvement of mainstream services to support vulnerable families by improving access to treatment, family interventions and parenting skills training to minimize the risk of harm.

Source: Victoria Manning, David W Best, Nathan Faulkner and Emily Titherington. New estimates of the number of children living with substance misusing parents: results from UK national household surveys. BMC Public Health, 2009;

As frequency of family dinners increases, reported drinking, smoking and drug use decreases.Compared to teens who have frequent family dinners (five to seven family dinners per week), those who have infrequent family dinners (fewer than three per week) are twice as likely to have used tobacco or marijuana, and more than one and a half times likelier to have used alcohol.

The relationship between the frequency of family dinners and substance use is especially strong among the youngest teens in the survey.

Compared to 12- and 13-year olds who have five to seven family dinners per week, those who have fewer than three family dinners per week are six times likelier to have used marijuana, four times likelier to have used tobacco, and three times likelier to have used alcohol.

Source: www.casacolumbia.org Sept.2009

Nearly one in two teenagers knows someone who has suffered from a mental health problem like paranoia after using cannabis, a survey suggests.Forty-two percent of 11-18 year olds know someone who has experienced memory loss, panic attacks or paranoia from cannabis, drugs information service Frank said.

The survey of 27,000 teenagers found 74% were aware of the risks.

It revealed 18% of teenagers felt under pressure to try the Class B drug.

One in ten thought it made them look cool.

The research, which was carried out on networking website Habbo Hotel, found 64% of young people were aware cannabis could cause panic attacks, 41% knew it could bring on paranoia and 38% thought it could result in memory loss.

Over 50% of teenagers associated cannabis use with losing motivation and doing badly at school or college.

But one in four said they saw cannabis as a “natural” drug, despite the risks.

And 14% of 11-18 year olds admitted using the drug to help them to cope with life.

Chris Hudson, from Frank, said: “The majority of teenagers (55%) don’t want to risk their health by using cannabis, however, some people choose to take the risk; while others wrongly believe cannabis is harmless because it is a plant.

“Cannabis messes with your mind – and reactions can be more powerful with stronger strains such as skunk, which is around twice as potent,” he warned.

Source: BBC Newsbeat 6th Aug.2009

Half of all U.S. children live in a house where a parent or other adult uses tobacco, drinks heavily or uses illegal drugs, according to a report released on Tuesday.
These adults are three times more likely to abuse their children and four times more likely to neglect them than parents who do not abuse alcohol or drugs or use tobacco, said the report from Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.
“Children of alcohol and drug abusers are at increased risk of accidents, injuries and academic failure. Such children are more likely to suffer conduct disorders, depression or anxiety, conditions that increase the risk children will smoke, drink and use drugs,” the center said in a statement.
The report is an analysis of the center’s own research as well as dozens of reports from groups ranging from Alcoholics Anonymous, U.S. government surveys on families and health behavior and the Children’s Defense Fund, a nonprofit social welfare organization.   It found that 35.6 million U.S. children, about half of all children in the country, live in a home where a parent or other adult uses tobacco, drinks heavily or uses illicit drugs.
More than 37 percent of U.S. children live with an adult who uses tobacco, nearly 24 percent live with a binge or heavy drinker and 12.7 percent live in a household where a parent or other adult uses illicit drugs, the report found.
Several studies show that children exposed to household cigarette smoke have a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, asthma and ear infections. They are more likely to have their tonsils or adenoids surgically removed and recent studies show they have a bigger risk of cancer and heart disease.
“If substance abusing parents are not concerned about what drugs, alcohol and tobacco are doing to themselves, they should be concerned about the ill effects they have on their children,” center Chairman Joseph Califano said.
“Children of substance abusing parents are much likelier to become substance abusers themselves,” he added.
“A child who gets through age 21 without smoking, using illegal drugs or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so.”

Source:   WASHINGTON (Reuters) Mar 29, 2005

While youth who had a history of abuse or mental health problems were more likely to become homeless, those same characteristics didn’t predict teens and young adults getting off the street six months later.

“It looks like the predictors of homelessness might be different than the predictors of exiting homelessness,” lead author Natasha Slesnick of Ohio State University said in a statement. “So that means prevention targets should be different from intervention targets.”

Being a teenager isn’t as risky as it used to be, but too many teens still put their lives and their health at risk, a CDC survey shows.Every two years, the CDC conducts its huge Youth Risk Behavior Survey. It contains detailed data from more than 14,000 questionnaires anonymously completed by teens in grades 9 through 12.

Overall, the 2007 results suggest that teens are acting more responsibly. Fewer are sexually active, nearly all wear seat belts, drinking and drug use are down, 80% of kids don’t smoke, and there are fewer suicide attempts.

This is good news to Howell Wechsler, EdD, MPH, director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health. In some cases, the new numbers begin to approach the CDC’s Healthy People 2010 objectives.   “What we are seeing is from the early to mid-1990s to now, on a large number of health risk behaviors, we are seeing very, very encouraging progress,” Wechsler tells WebMD.

Even so, the new numbers are enough to take a parent’s breath away:
• 7% of teens say they’ve attempted suicide (down from nearly 9% in
2001).
• 35% of teens say they’re sexually active (down from 37.5% in 2001).
• 18% of teens say they carry a gun, knife, or club (no significant change from 2001).
• 20% of teens say they smoke cigarettes (down from 36.4% in 1997).
• Nearly 45% of teens say they use alcohol (down from 50% in 1999).
• About 20% of teens say they use marijuana (down from nearly 27% in 1999).
• Only about 21% of kids eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables (down from 24% in 1999).
• 25% of teens play video games or use the computer for three or more hours a day (up from 21% in 2005).
• More than 65% of kids don’t get enough exercise , and 25% of teens say they don’t even get an hour of exercise on any day of the week.

“We are gratified that there is progress being made,” Wechsler says. “But my take on it is this: I have a bunch of kids myself and I am not going to be satisfied until we meet our goals — and in most areas we are still not meeting our Healthy People 2010 objectives. So I see no cause to be overly
satisfied.”

(Which teens are most at risk? Find out from guest blogger Howell Wechsler on WebMD’s News Watch blog.)

Best States/Cities, Worst States/Cities

In some cases, the overall numbers conceal states and localities where teen behavior is much better — and much worse — than average:
• 62.2% of Kentucky kids have tried smoking cigarettes, compared with only 24.9% of Utah teens (national average: 50.3%).
• 34.5% of West Virginia teens use tobacco products, compared with only 8.9% of kids in Vermont (national average: 25.7%).
• 44.7% of Alaska teens have tried marijuana, compared with only 17.4% of Kentucky kids (national average: 38.1%)
• 90.8% of kids in New York attend physical education classes at least once a week vs. 28.4% of kids in South Dakota (national average: 53.6%).
• 49.7% of Baltimore teens are sexually active, compared with 17.5% of San Francisco teens (national average: 35%).
• 39.2% of ninth to 12th graders in Dallas have been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug, compared with 13.5% of teens in Baltimore (national average: 22.3%).

Wechsler says the survey data don’t show exactly why teens in some areas take fewer health risks than teens in other areas. But he says that state and local efforts to reduce specific risk behaviors pay off. He points to anti-tobacco efforts as an example.

“One thing that is instructive is the tremendous difference in resources different states put into this,” Wechsler says. “In some states, teen tobacco use is much lower than the national rate. And we see this in exactly those states where they have made substantial investments in tobacco
reduction.”

Even Good Teens Take Risks — What Parents Must Do

If none of this sounds like your teenager, listen to Nancy Cahir, PhD, a child/adolescent/adult psychologist in private practice in Atlanta.

“What I have seen in my practice is even parents who think it couldn’t happen to their child — well, it can,” Cahir tells WebMD. “Even with the ‘perfect child,’ there may be hidden issues; even in good families, bad things can happen. There is no discrimination when it comes to high-risk behavior for teens.”

Parents have a responsibility to involve themselves in their children’s lives, Cahir says. They cannot assume their teen is doing fine because they haven’t had calls from the school or because their teen’s grades are good.

“Parents, I say stay close to your children. Know your kids the way you know your best friend, and keep in touch with them,” she says. “Spend time with them, know their friends, and know the parents of the children your children hang out with. Say to them every day, ‘Did you have a difficult day? What’s going on with you? How are you doing?’”

It’s probably not news that teens can be moody, even surly at times. Your teen may respond to your inquiries with something like, “My life is none of your business.”

Not so, says Cahir.

“Every parent has the right to say, ‘It is too my business,’” she says. “Parents sometimes shy away from being more involved because they don’t want to seem intrusive. But it is their business to know whom their child hangs out with, to know whether the child is in distress, and to help their children through these difficult times. Sometimes kids don’t like hearing that, and may respond in defiant ways, but parents must toe the line and say, ‘We have a right to know.’”

But Wechsler agrees with Cahir that communication is not only what your children need, but what they truly want.

“As a parent of two teens myself, you tend to believe them when they walk out of the room and don’t express any interest in hearing from you,” Wechsler says. “But kids really do want that communication with parents. They really do want to hear their parents’ values. They really need their parents to monitor their whereabouts and stay in touch and stay a very strong part of their lives.”

Cahir says the key to communicating with teens is developing mutual respect.

“Each member of a family should treat the others members like a best friend or at least as a guest in the house,” she says. “If you are angry with your teen, or your teen is angry with you, you have to talk it out in a way that is not hostile or aggressive. I’ve seen some families go after each other tooth and nail and they end up really harming each other.”

If communication breaks down, it may be time for the family to sit down with a professional to learn how to express disagreements in a constructive way.

The full CDC report, “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance — United States, 2007,” is available on the CDC’s web site. For comparison, earlier years’ reports are also available.

Source:CBS News Web 4 June 2008

Individual case reports have suggested a link between heart attack and amphetamine abuse, but this is believed to be the first epidemiological study of a large group of people on the issue, said Dr. Arthur Westover, assistant professor of psychiatry at
UT Southwestern and the study’s lead author.
  
“Most people aren’t surprised that methamphetamines and amphetamines are bad for your health,” Dr. Westover said. “But we are concerned because heart attacks in the young are rare and can be very debilitating or deadly.”

Amphetamines are stimulants that can be used to treat medical conditions such as attention-deficient disorder. They are illegally abused as recreational drugs or performance enhancers.

The researchers note that abuse of methamphetamine, a type of amphetamine often sold illegally, is increasing in most major U.S. cities.

In Texas, the researchers found greater amphetamine abuse in the north and Panhandle regions.

“This paper sounds a warning to amphetamine abusers, alerts emergency department personnel to look for amphetamine abuse in young heart attack patients, and it allows us to focus preventive efforts in geographical areas where the problems are greatest,” said Dr. Robert W. Haley, chief of epidemiology at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study. Dr. Haley holds the U.S. Armed Forces Veterans Distinguished Chair for Medical Research, Honoring America’s Gulf War Veterans.
“We’re also concerned that the number of amphetamine-related heart attacks could be increasing,” Dr. Westover said. “We’d rather raise the warning flag now than later. Hopefully, we can decrease the number of people who suffer heart attacks as the result of amphetamine abuse.”
Amphetamines may contribute to heart attacks by increasing heart rate and blood pressure and by causing inflammation and artery spasms that limit blood to the heart muscle. More research is needed to determine the exact mechanism of how amphetamines work on the heart, he said.
The current research could help doctors determine the cause of heart attacks in young adults, as well as treatment. Doctors recognizing an amphetamine-caused heart attack might choose not to administer a beta-blocker medication, a common treatment for heart attack, because it could interact with methamphetamine to make the heart attack worse.

The results could have broad implications in the general population, Dr. Westover said. Texas ranks 27th among all states in use of methamphetamine among 18- to 25-year-old adults, according to a 2006 government report.

“We’re talking about a state that is near the middle of prevalence of methamphetamine use in the United States, so it’s possible that the number of heart attacks in young adults in other states with a much higher prevalence of amphetamine abuse may be higher as well,” said Dr. Westover, who is a National Institutes of Health Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Scholar at UT Southwestern.
Dr. Paul Nakonezny, assistant professor of clinical sciences and psychiatry at
UT Southwestern, was also involved in the study.

The work was supported by a North and Central Texas Clinical and Translational Science Initiative grant from the National Center for Research Resources, a component of the National Institutes of Health.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The earlier a young person uses marijuana the greater the risk for mental health problems later in life, the director of National Drug Control Policy said Tuesday, basing his conclusion on a survey of medical research.
 
“We’re trying to get out the word that the last 10 years of research have helped to alert us to the use of marijuana in particular is a very dangerous risk for the mental health of our young people,” John Walters said at a news conference.
He said the conclusion runs against popular culture that often considers marijuana a low-risk recreational drug.
Walters cited a government study that found a base rate of mental illness at between 8 percent and 9 percent among Americans 18 and older. For those who use marijuana, he said, “That increases to 12-and-a-half percent.”
And, he added, “For those who have used marijuana prior to age 12, the rate of mental illness jumps to 21 percent.”
The rate was half that, or 10.5 percent, for adults who first used marijuana at age 18 or older.
Those were the findings of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual survey sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Walters did not directly address the possibility of confusing cause and effect — that is, that people with mental problems might be more inclined to use drugs.
One study he cited was published last year in the Archives of General Psychiatry. It involved 600 pairs of same-sex twins, one of whom was dependent on marijuana and one of whom was not. The twin who was dependent was almost three times as likely to think about suicide and attempt suicide than his brother or sister, the study found.
Neil McKeganey, who heads the University of Glasgow’s Center for Drug Misuse Research, was at the press conference in support of Walters.
“It is leading us to look again at this so-called recreational drug,” he said. “Kids who start to use marijuana at a young age are much more likely to suffer serious, long-term mental health problems.”
The parents of a teenager who committed suicide last year were also at the news conference, and they linked their son’s death to his marijuana use.
Tanya Skaggs, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, said, “He had a severe lack of judgment that was because of the marijuana, this destructive behavior was continuing,” in the months leading up to his death.
The parents were unable to break his marijuana use, Skaggs said, despite counseling, searching his room for pot and random drug tests.
“We just never thought that something like this could happen to us. But it does, and it did,” she said. “We wish we could have helped.”
Agenda ‘detrimental to your children’
Walters downplayed whether the medical use of marijuana undercuts the impact of warnings to young people against pot use.
The question was tied to a decision by Canada last month to approve the prescription drug Sativex, an oral spray that contains the active ingredient of marijuana, to treat the symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
He responded, “We believe that there’s a clear distinction” between validated medical benefits and what he said could be “a bunch of ads where people testify that their mother, dying, smoked a joint and was saved, and that means marijuana is medicine.”
“Your children are being educated,” he said of such advertising. “But they’re being told lies. And they’re being told things that are designed to push a particular agenda which is detrimental to your children, and detrimental to the country.”
Group calls for national discussion
Meanwhile, a Washington-based nonprofit group released a report recommending changes in the way authorities handle drug offenses, citing a “disproportionate” focus on “low-level marijuana users.”
“The ‘war on drugs’ in the 1990s was, essentially, a ‘war on marijuana,’” said the report by the Sentencing Project, which was founded in 1986 to promote alternative sentencing programs.
A national analysis covering 1990 to 2002 found that, of a 450,000 rise in drug arrests during that period, 82 percent of the increase was for marijuana, and 79 percent was for marijuana possession alone.
Marijuana arrests now make up 45 percent of the nation’s 1.5 million drug arrests annually, the report said, and an estimated $4 billion is spent each year on marijuana offenders.
“The growth in marijuana arrests over the 1990s has not led to a decrease in use or availability, nor an increase in cost,” the group said. “Meanwhile, billions are being spent nationally.”
The report calls for “a national discussion regarding the zealous prosecution of marijuana use and its consequences for allocation of criminal justice resources and public safety.”
“Law enforcement has focused disproportionately on low-level possession charges as a result of the nation’s lack of a thoughtful strategy,” it said.Source:www.WordPress.com June 2008

While most university students tend to “mature out” of heavy drinking by the time they’re young adults, some develop alcohol-use disorders, or AUDs. Most genetic research on family history of alcoholism has focused on alcohol use by the parents, most often the father.
But this study found that the density of family history of alcoholism (FHA) is much more effective.
“Using a density measure of FHA can identify a greater number of individuals who may be at risk for developing an alcohol problem. The greater the number of affected relatives, the greater the potential risk of developing an AUD. Ours is the first published study to examine this measure among college students,” first author Christy Capone, a postdoctoral research fellow at Brown University’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, said in a prepared statement.
The study included 293 female and 115 male undergraduates from a northeastern U.S. university who completed an anonymous survey.
“Our use of a density measure identified a large proportion of students, about 29 percent, who are at potentially greater risk for development of AUDs based on their report of alcoholism among first- and second-degree relatives,” Capone said. “Our other key finding was the relationship between FHA and other potential risk factors — behavioral undercontrol, age of onset of drinking (AOD), and cigarette use.”
“Family density appears to be a promising method to identify a higher percentage of at-risk individuals,” John Hustad, a research associate at Brown University, said in a prepared statement. “For example, in this study, approximately 44 percent of the at-risk participants would have been missed if a typical family-history measure had been used instead of the family-history density approach.”
Capone said: “It is important to remember than not everyone with density of family alcoholism will go on to develop a long-term problem with alcohol themselves. Alcohol dependence is a very complex disorder, and FHA is but one influence on its development. However, college students who are heavy drinkers and have greater density of familial alcoholism are certainly at higher risk of continuing to drink in a problematic fashion after the college years.”
The study was published online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and was expected to be in the August print issue.Source: (HealthDay News) June 4 2008

Context  While both environmental and genetic factors are important in the etiology of psychoactive substance use (PSU), we know little of how these influences differ through development.
Objective To clarify the changing role of genes and environment in PSU from early adolescence through middle adulthood.
Design  Retrospective assessment by life history calendar, with univariate and bivariate structural modeling.
Setting  General community.
Participants  A total of 1796 members of male-male pairs from the Virginia Adult Twin Study of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders.
Main Outcome Measures  Levels of use of alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, and nicotine recorded for every year of the respondent’s life.
Results  For nicotine, alcohol, and cannabis, familial environmental factors were critical in influencing use in early adolescence and gradually declined in importance through young adulthood. Genetic factors, by contrast, had little or no influence on PSU in early adolescence and gradually increased in their effect with increasing age. The sources of individual differences in caffeine use changed much more modestly over time. Substantial correlations were seen among levels of cannabis, nicotine, and alcohol use and specifically between caffeine and nicotine. In adolescence, those correlations were strongly influenced by shared effects from the familial environment. However, as individuals aged, more and more of the correlation in PSU resulted from genetic factors that influenced use of both substances.
Conclusions  These results support an etiologic model for individual differences in PSU in which initiation and early patterns of use are strongly influenced by social and familial environmental factors while later levels of use are strongly influenced by genetic factors. The substantial correlations seen in levels of PSU across substances are largely the result of social environmental factors in adolescence, with genetic factors becoming progressively more important through early and middle adulthood.Kenneth S. Kendler, MD; Eric Schmitt, BS; Steven H. Aggen, PhD; Carol A. Prescott, PhD

Source: Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008;65(6):674-682.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) released a report today, co-edited by University of Minnesota professor Barbara Loken, that reaches the government’s strongest conclusion to date that tobacco marketing and depictions of smoking in movies promote youth smoking. “There is now incontrovertible evidence that marketing of tobacco, and the depiction of smoking in the movies, promote youth smoking and can cause young people to begin smoking,” said Loken, professor of marketing at the Carlson School of Management and one of the report’s five scientific editors.
The 684-page monograph, “The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use,” presents definitive conclusions that a) tobacco advertising and promotion are causally related to increased tobacco use, and b) exposure to depictions of smoking in movies causes youth smoking initiation. The report also concludes that while mass media campaigns can reduce tobacco use, youth smoking prevention campaigns sponsored by the tobacco industry are generally ineffective and may even increase youth smoking.
“The role of marketing in the success of the tobacco companies is conclusive,” according to Loken. “The report’s recommendations offer the best approach to employ marketing techniques and the media to help prevent a further increase in youth smoking.”
The NCI report reaches six major conclusions:
1. Cigarettes are one of the most heavily marketed products in the United States.
2. Tobacco advertising targets psychological needs of adolescents, such as popularity and peer acceptance. Advertising creates the perception that smoking satisfies these needs.
3. Even brief exposure to tobacco advertising influences adolescents’ perceptions about smoking, smokers, and adolescents’ intentions to smoke.
4. The depiction of cigarette smoking is pervasive in movies, occurring in 75 percent or more of contemporary box-office hits, with identifiable brands in about one-third of movies.
5. A comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising and promotion is an effective policy intervention that prevents tobacco companies from shifting marketing expenditures to permitted media.
6. The tobacco industry works hard to impede tobacco control media campaigns, including attempts to prevent or reduce their funding.
“This direct link between marketing and tobacco use is very powerful.” Loken said, “Anti-tobacco ads before films and a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising are two effective strategies found to curb effects of tobacco images on youth. Now we need to use marketing to steer youth and others away from tobacco.”
The report provides the most current and comprehensive analysis of more than 1,000 scientific studies on the role of the media in encouraging and discouraging tobacco use. The report is Monograph 19 in the NCI’s Tobacco Control Monograph series examining critical issues in tobacco prevention and control. Research included in the review comes from the disciplines of marketing, psychology, communications, statistics, epidemiology and public health.Source: National Cancer Institute Report. National Press Club Release 21 August

Twiggs County school system will receive a $62,724 federal grant to help students say no to gangs, according to a legislative news release    The grant from the Department of Justice will develop a Gang Resistance and Education Training program for Twiggs elementary and middle school students.
 Known as G.R.E.A.T, it’s a violence prevention curriculum that helps students develop values and practice behaviors to help them avoid destructive activities. It will help pay for a summer program and activities afterschool.
“This funding will go a long way to help ensure that Twiggs County has the resources necessary to help prevent young people from getting involved in dangerous activities,” Sen. Isakson said.
“G.R.E.A.T is an important resource for Georgia’s youth and I’m pleased to see Twiggs County receive this funding which will help keep our communities safe,” Chambliss said.Source: www.macon.com August 2008

Kids on both sides of the Atlantic are smoking less pot and going out less often with friends at night, a study of 15-year-olds in 30 countries found. The double declines occurred in the United States, Canada and mostly European countries from 2002 to 2006. The trends are likely related, since other research has found that kids who spend many evenings out are more likely to smoke dope than homebodies.
Since few parents approve of marijuana use, teens are most likely to use the drug secretly away from home, said lead author Emmanuel Kuntsche of the Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems.
Reasons for the declines are unclear. But the researchers said drug prevention efforts and technology may have contributed.   Instant messaging, e-mail and cell phones “may have partly replaced face-to-face contacts, leading to fewer social contacts in the evenings,” Kuntsche said.
The study appears in February’s Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, released Monday.  The researchers analyzed data on 93,297 15-year-olds from periodic health surveys in dozens of countries conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organization.
Survey questionnaires were distributed to entire classrooms at various schools, asking various health-related questions including about marijuana use and evenings out with friends in the past year. Responses to 2006 surveys were compared with those in 2002.   Users were kids who’d tried marijuana at least once in the past year.  Marijuana use increased only in Estonia, Lithuania and Malta, and among Russian girls.
While rates varied widely among countries, prevalence was highest both years in Canada, where 30 percent of boys and almost 28 percent of girls used marijuana in 2006. That was down 13 percent among boys and almost 10 percent among girls.
The United States ranked third in 2006, with 24 percent of boys and girls each reporting marijuana use. That was down almost 12 percent among boys and 2 percent among girls, echoing previous reports of declining pot use among U.S. teens.
Switzerland ranked second in prevalence among boys, and Wales was second among girls. Greece, Macedonia and Sweden were at the bottom of the list — with fewer than 5 percent of boys and girls reporting marijuana use in 2006.
Average number of evenings out also decreased in most countries. In the United States, nights out fell slightly to about twice a week in 2006 for boys and girls.
An Archives editorial ( http://www.archpediatrics.com) said that while evenings out may increase chances for marijuana use, parents shouldn’t discourage socializing since teens need time away from home to gain independence. Instead, the editorial advises, parents should help steer kids to activities that don’t encourage drug use.

Source: Associated Press Feb. 2009

All those T-shirts, hats and other items promoting alcoholic beverages that young people wear may be more than just a fashion statement.   Teens who own such merchandise are more likely to start drinking and become binge drinkers, a new study contends.
The Dartmouth scientists who did the research said this is the first study directly linking alcohol-branded merchandise to adolescent drinking and outcomes such as binge drinking that can result in illness and death. In addition, the data provide evidence that this merchandise promotes teen drinking and could be a basis for enacting policies to restrict this alcohol-marketing practice, the researchers said.
“About 3 million adolescents in the United States own alcohol-branded merchandise,” said lead researcher Dr. Auden C. McClure, a pediatrician at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, N.H. “Ownership of these items is associated with susceptibility to alcohol use and binge drinking,” she added.
These items serve as a marker for adolescents who drink, McClure said. “But it is also a direct link with susceptibility and initiation to drinking,” she said. “You can’t say any longer that these items are just a marker of kids who drink.”

Source:Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.  arch 2009

A literature review
Results
The most extensive and consistent evidence relates to young people’s interaction with their
families. The key predictors of drug use are parental discipline, family cohesion and parental
monitoring. Some aspects of family structure such as large family size and low parental age
are linked to adolescent drug use. There is also consistent evidence linking peer drug use
and drug availability to adolescent drug use. There is extensive evidence on parental
substance use, although some studies report no association while others indicate that the
association is attenuated by strong family cohesion. Age is strongly associated with
prevalence of drug use among young people reflecting a range of factors including drug
availability, peer relationships and reduced parental monitoring. There is limited evidence
suggesting that genetic factors account for a significant proportion of the variance in liability to
use cannabis, however this interpretation has been criticised by other writers. There is a
similar level of evidence linking self-esteem and hedonism to drug use. The available
evidence indicates that higher levels of drug use are strongly associated with young people’s
reasons for using drugs after controlling for risk factors.
Categories where evidence linking specific factors is mixed include: mental health, Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), stimulant therapy, religious involvement, sport, health
educator interventions, school performance, early onset of substance use and socioeconomic
status. For some of these categories there is evidence of indirect effects; for
example, socio-economic status may influence parental monitoring which in turn influences
drug use. The review did not consider any studies relating to previously identified risk and
protective factors such as ethnicity or impulsivity.
For young drug users in treatment, psychosocial risk predicts drug abuse at treatment entry
but not follow up. In contrast, protective factors are of increased importance during recovery
The overall ratio of risk to protection may be more important than any individual factor. These
results, although supported by a relatively small body of research, support the concept of
resilience to drug use. According to this view resilience to drug use is enhanced by increasing
social skills, social attachments and material resources despite constant exposure to known
risk factors.
Whereas risk and resilience are, to a large extent, independent of individuals’ motives, there
is evidence that the latter are just as important as the former in determining drug use. Young
drug users consistently report getting intoxicated and relief from negative mood states as
reasons for their drug use. Qualitative research shows that the context in which young people
experience drugs is crucial for understanding how risk and protective factors operate in
relation to experimental and sustained drug use.
Risk factors have differential predictive values throughout adolescence. Some factors may
occur at birth (or before) while others occur at varying times throughout adolescence. Some
factors may persist for long periods of time while others are transitory. The distinction
between early and late onset risk factors is important as preventive measures need to focus
on particular age groups.
Conclusion
This review was pragmatic because it was time constrained and not all the studies identified
could be reviewed in detail. From the studies reviewed, the evidence relating to factors
associated with increased (or decreased) risk of drug use is described. Further analysis would
require a detailed assessment of individual studies, with clear specification of exposures (risk
and protective factors), outcomes (type and level of drug use) and study design (i.e. did
exposure precede the outcome).
Much of the current knowledge about risk and protective factors is not yet available in a form
that would permit the calculation of the effect of reducing exposure to risk (or enhancing
protective factors), even if was possible to modify the exposure. The evidence indicates that
risk and protective factors are context dependent and operate on people taking drugs for
disparate reasons. With these caveats, improving the general social environment of children
and supporting parents will probably be the most effective strategies for primary prevention of
drug use. Studies indicating that risk and resilience can be successfully altered include
interventions for parental monitoring and enhancement of social attachments and skills.
These interventions show promise but have rarely been implemented or evaluated in the UK.

Source:   Home Office OnLine report 05/07 Martin Frisher et al

The Texas Prevention Impact Index is a report showing statistics in the usage of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and violence among students in the Amarillo independent school district.
The TPII look at risk and protective factors that lead students to or away from the various substances. They look at perceptions in the community towards alcohol, drugs, and tobacco use. The numbers also reflect the usage of these substances by the students that fill out the survey.
25 hundred surveys are filled out by a cross section of students in the Amarillo school district, ranging from the 6th grade up to seniors in high school.
Here a few noteworthy statistics you may find interesting from the data collected by Research and Educational services, a private evaluation and research firm based out of Houston. The company has done the surveys and completed the data for A.I.S.D. since 2002.
47.9% of students say they would go to parents if they had a question about alcohol or drugs, versus 20.7% say they would ask a friend their age.
The number of students who say it’s ok to have alcohol to have a good time is 26% down from 30% just 4 years ago.
The number of students who think schools do NOT enforce rules on drinking have gone down form 30% to 19%, which means more students are getting the idea that it’s not acceptable to use alcohol from the school district.
In the category of usage in the past 30 days here are some numbers that show improvement.
In the past 30 days, seniors are using alcohol 7% less, using tobacco 6% less, and nearly 14% less of the students serveyed say they have participated in binge drinking in the past 30 days. All are positive stats.
87% of all students across the board have NOT used Marijuana in the past 30 days.
Frequency of usage numbers also show decreases. Tobacco is down 12%, alcohol is down 6%, marijuana is down 11%, this means that those kids that do use these substances are not using as frequently.
Some statistics that show perception changes are the following: 93% of the students surveyed say that they are harming themselves by smoking. 79% of students, up from 69% say that they are harming themselves by smoking marijuana.
Switching gears to violence and safety issues.
15% of students say they have been bullied during the past 30 days.
12% say they’ve been involved with a group fight.
In the past year the percentage of students who have been in a fight at school was 15%.
33.4% of the students say they have discussed safety issues with family in the past 30 days.
All in all, some of the numbers shown are alarming and some show great improvement in prevention and awareness programs here in Amarillo. The Amarillo community should be proud that the students have made progress and the school district is working decrease these all important problems.
“It shows, basically that the efforts that are being conducted here are working, to be honest with you when you look at the rest of the state or other areas in the state, I don’t think you see the same kind of trends or same kind of change in those areas, it’s been very successful here,” said Dr. Robert Landry, Director of Research and Educational Services.
“We’re seeing some decreases in some types of drug use which we’re glad to see, we also know that we need to continue the education K-12 for our students and be able to share current information with them,” said Teresa Kenedy, A.I.S.D. Prevention Specialist.

Source: www.connectamarillo.com  31st March 2009

From 2002 to 2007, there were decreases in the percentages of adolescents aged 12 to 17 reporting exposure to drug or alcohol use prevention messages through media sources (from 83.2 to 77.9 percent) and prevention programs outside of school (from 12.7 to 11.3 percent), but the percentage who had talked with their parents about the dangers of alcohol, drug, or tobacco use in the past year increased (from 58.1 to 59.6 percent)
   Combined data from 2002 to 2007 indicate that talking with a parent about the dangers of substance use decreased with age (61.6 percent of those aged 12 or 13, 59.5 percent of those aged 14 or 15, and 57.1 percent of those aged 16 or 17), whereas the percentage receiving prevention messages through media sources increased with age (77.0, 82.7, and 84.2 percent, respectively)
   In general, adolescents who reported having been exposed to substance use prevention messages in the past year were less likely than those who were not exposed to have used cigarettes, alcohol, and illicit drugs in the past month

Source:www.samhsa.gov

Research Summary
Teenagers expect and want adults to discourage them from using tobacco, according to new research from the
Researcher Maria Nilsson evaluated the impact of an anti-smoking program, Tobacco-Free Duo, which started in 1993. The program targets children between the ages of 13-15 and includes adults supporting the teenagers in staying tobacco-free.
Nilsson found that smoking rates declined among adolescents in the program over a seven-year period, while no corresponding change was observed at the national level. In addition, one in four tobacco-using adults participating in the program stopped smoking in order to take part.
“Children expect adults to work against tobacco. They say this is important and that grown-ups can make a difference by showing a clear and positive commitment,” said Nilsson.
Survey results on 15-year-old smokers showed that close relationships with caring adults played an important role in getting teenagers to smoke less or stop smoking all together.
Source: Promoting Health in Adolescents: Preventing the Use of Tobacco. Umea University in Sweden, Science Daily reported May 5.

A family-based prevention program designed to help adolescents avoid substance use and other risky behavior proved especially effective for a group of young teens with a genetic risk factor contributing toward such behavior, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Georgia.

For two-and-a-half years, investigators monitored the progress of 11-year-olds enrolled in a family-centered prevention program called Strong African American Families (SAAF), and a comparison group. A DNA analysis showed some youths carried the short allele form of 5-HTTLPR. This fairly common genetic variation, found in over 40 percent of people, is known from previous studies to be associated with impulsivity, low self-control, binge drinking, and substance use.
The researchers found that adolescents with this gene who participated in the SAAF program were no more likely than their counterparts without the gene to have engaged in drinking, marijuana smoking, and sexual activity. Moreover, youths with the gene in the comparison group were twice as likely to have engaged in these risky behaviors as those in the prevention group.
The research team recruited 641 families in rural Georgia with similar demographic characteristics. They were divided randomly into two groups: 291 were assigned to a control group that received three mailings of health-related information, and 350 were assigned to the SAAF program, in which parents and children participated in seven consecutive weeks of two-hour prevention sessions. The parents learned about effective caregiving strategies that included monitoring, emotional support, family communication, and handling racial discrimination, which can contribute to substance abuse. The children were taught how to set and attain positive goals, deal with peer pressure and stress, and avoid risky activities.
Researchers conducted home visits with the families when the children were ages 11, 12, and 14 and collected data on parent-child relationships, peer relationships, youth goals for the future, and youth risk behavior. Two years later, the scientists collected DNA from saliva samples provided by the adolescents to determine whether they carried the short allele of 5HTTLPR. The results confirmed that the adolescents carrying this risk gene who were in the control group engaged in risky behaviors at a rate double that of their peers in the SAAF program.
“We found that the prevention program proved especially beneficial for children with a genetic risk factor tied to risky behaviors,” says the lead author, Gene H. Brody, Ph.D., Regents Professor and Director of the Center for Family Research at the University of Georgia. “The results emphasize the important role of parents, caregivers, and family-centered prevention programs in promoting healthy development during adolescence, especially when children have a biological makeup that may pose a challenge.”
Dr. Brody also notes that much of the protective influence of SAAF results from enhancing parenting practices. “The ability of effective parenting to override genetic predispositions to risky behaviors demonstrates the capacity of family-centered prevention programs to benefit developing adolescents,” he says. The study team, which included researchers from the University of Iowa and Vanderbilt University, concluded that the results validate the use of randomized, controlled prevention trials to test hypotheses about the ways in which genes and environments interact.

Source:: NIH/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (2009, May 20). Prevention Program Helps Teens Override A Gene Linked To Risky Behavior. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 31, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/2009/05/090515083705.htm

 COST OF SUBSTANCE  The breakdown on federal and state money for substance abuse and addiction (numbers don’t add up to 100% due to rounding):
     95.6% Health care/assistance/prosecution
      2.4% Prevention/treatment/research
      1.4% Regulation/compliance
      0.7% Interdiction (federal only)
Source: The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University
 
Most of the taxpayer money devoted to combating alcohol and drug abuse goes to cleaning up its consequences, while only about 2% of the funding is used for prevention, says a report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.
The study found that 96% of the $467.7 billion a year that federal, state and local governments spend on substance abuse is used to deal with consequences such as crime and homelessness.
Of that money, according to the report, governments spend the most on health care costs associated with substance abuse (58%) followed by the costs of prosecuting and jailing the offenders (13.1%).
“The killer finding is that we are spending 96 cents of every dollar we spend on substance abuse and addiction to shovel up the human wreckage,” says Joseph Califano Jr., founder and chairman of CASA. “We’re making this really tiny investment in prevention and treatment when we have enough experience to know that prevention and treatment can reduce the shoveling-up burden.”
Researchers determined spending amounts by analyzing federal, state and local budgets for the year 2005, the most recent year that complete data were available, Califano says.
“These governments have it backwards,” he says. “They’re wasting billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money and not making some relatively simple investments that could sharply reduce the consequences of drug and alcohol addiction.”
Califano says the main reason that federal and state governments aren’t ready to change priorities is because there is a stigma attached to alcohol and drug addiction.
To reduce the amount spent on substance abuse, Califano says, the government needs to “mount major prevention programs,” with a focus on kids.
He adds that increasing taxes on alcohol and training doctors to talk to patients about their substance use also will help decrease associated costs.
“This is a problem we can deal with. We know a lot more about it than we knew years ago,” Califano says.
Source: USA Today 27th May 2009

<span style=”font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Amid renewed calls to consider reducing the legal drinking age, a new University of Georgia study finds that lower drinking ages increase unplanned pregnancies and pre-term births among young people.
“Our findings suggest that a lower drinking age increases risky sexual behavior among young people, and that leads to more unplanned pregnancies that result in premature birth and low birth weight,” said study author Angela Fertig, assistant professor in the UGA College of Public Health. “The take-home message is that when it’s easier for young people to get alcohol, birth outcomes are worse.”

Fertig, who is also a public service assistant in the university’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, co-authored the study with Tara Watson, assistant professor of economics at Williams College in Massachusetts. Their results appear in the May issue of the Journal of Health Economics.

The team examined birth records and survey data on alcohol use for the years 1978 to 1988, a period when state minimum drinking age laws were in flux. Fertig said the consensus among researchers is that a higher minimum drinking age reduces fatal car crashes and alcohol consumption among young adults, but there is little data on how drinking age laws influence infant health. The researchers found that a drinking age of 18:
Increases prenatal alcohol consumption among 18- to 20-year-old women by 21 percent;
Increases the number of births to 18- to 20-year-olds by 4.6 percent in white women and 3.9 percent in 18- to 20-year-old African-American women;
Increases the likelihood of women under age 21 having a low-birth weight baby by 6 percent (4 percent for white women and 8 percent for African-American women); and
Increases the likelihood of premature birth by 5 percent in white women under age 18 and by 7 percent in African-American women under age 18.

Fertig noted that in many cases the impact of a reduced drinking age disproportionately falls on African-Americans. The researchers found that a drinking age of 18 increases the probability of an unplanned pregnancy by 25 percent for African-American women, for example.

The team’s analysis revealed that the negative birth outcomes associated with a lower drinking age aren’t the direct result of prenatal alcohol consumption on fetal health. Instead, a lower minimum drinking age results in more unplanned pregnancies, which are known to be associated with poorer infant health outcomes.

“Teenagers who get pregnant unexpectedly are less likely to receive good prenatal care and may not take as much interest in the child as someone who tried to get pregnant,” Fertig said. “As a result of these behaviors on the mom’s part, the child ends up with worse outcomes.”

Last year, a group known as the Amethyst Initiative comprised of more than 100 college and university presidents and chancellors signed a statement encouraging discussion about lowering the legal drinking age. Fertig said her study broadens the debate by adding a new dimension that until now has not been considered.

“There are consequences to lowering the drinking age beside traffic fatalities,” Fertig said. “There’s this potentially big effect on birth outcomes, and to me that argues that we should leave the minimum drinking age where it is.”

Source:  HealthNewsDigest.com  21st May 2009

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In a report published in October 2008, the National Audit Office examined the NHS response to the rising levels of alcohol-related disease. Hospital admissions for the three main alcohol specific conditions (alcohol-related liver disease, mental health disorders linked to alcohol, and acute intoxication) have doubled in the last 11 years. There were also twice as many deaths from alcohol related causes in the UK in 2006 as there were 15 years before, increasing from 4,100 to 8,800.
Last week the National Treatment Agency published the staggering figure of nearly 25,000 young people under 18 getting treatment for their drugs and alcohol problems
Drugscope suggest that the numbers of young people using drugs and alcohol are falling and portrays this as ‘good news’.  National school age statistics on drugs use, still show that a staggering 25% of the UK’s school age children (11 – 15) have tried drugs – figures that are way higher than the European average – and that 10% of them are using drugs regularly.The last comparable survey figures for European school children under 15 also showed UK to have 13% of our under 13s having tried cannabis against a European average of 4%. It is also the case that, while the trend for schoolchildren’s drug use remained stable across Europe between 1999 and 2005, in the UK it doubled. Although UK school childrens’ drug of choice, cannabis, appears to have now stabilised, their cocaine consumption has been rising – unheard of elsewhere in Europe.
But it is also likely that levels of teenage cannabis use are higher than the published statistics state, as the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recently acknowledged. In their view the British Crime Survey is likely for a range of reasons to underestimate it. Even so, these estimates show that some 12% of 16 -19 year olds are regular users and that 20% of them have used it in the last year.
A percentage point decline in cannabis use in official statistics is small comfort for parents or for schools. Hospital admissions show that this small gain has been wiped out by the rising strength of cannabis and by the fact that children are moving earlier to Class A drugs. In fact with the UK cannabis market dominated by high THC skunk, which, according to a former head of the Dutch Police Narcotics Division, should now count as a ‘hard drug’, what we are witnessing is an ever earlier and disturbing shift to hard drug use. To dismiss such concerns as distorted perceptions is really not on. As any ‘in touch’ parent of a teenager in central London knows, regular cannabis using kids are moving to cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy by the time they are 16 or 17. Many teenagers appear to be immune to drug dangers despite the endless compulsory personal health and social education classes that they are subjected to at school. Nor has the government’s mixed message about drugs helped – namely their explicit policy statements about the non harmful nature of ‘recreational’ and casual drug use; no more helpful is their confused ‘informed choice’ approach to drugs education.
The appalling truth, as far as adults are concerned, is that we seem to have surrendered to a sense of ‘inevitability’ about children’s drug use.
While drugs services and drugs advisors have no more urgent need than to highlight “the problems faced by young people when they reach 18 and are no longer eligible for specialist services” and “to ease their transition to adult services”, the outlook is dire indeed.
The NTA’s tables reveal that 1600 teenagers are receiving treatment for heroin, cocaine and crack addiction and that 29% – some 6000 in all of those in treatment – are now receiving ‘harm reduction’ interventions – usually understood to be a euphemism for prescribing an opiate substitute like Subutex or methadone. As Professor Neil McKeganey, a leading expert in drugs misuse has said: ‘The idea of starting someone under 18 on a methadone prescription with an implicit expectation that they may be on that drug for the next ten or more years is appalling. We need services to think beyond the chemical inducement into therapy.’
The desperate fact though, is that there is still only one small dedicated residential rehabilitation centre with statutory funding for no more than 12 children/ teenagers at a time in the country. Last year Mike Trace, Chief Executive of RAPT – the Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust – spoke of the urgent need for residential treatment for young, under 18, addicts. Young addicts, he said, were unlikely to get better within the environment in which they had grown up and that had fed their problems. Any parent of a young addict knows just how truly he spoke.
But how much of the National Treatment Agency’s dedicated funding of £25 million is being spent on this? How many teenagers are emerging drug free from their encounters with services? How effective are the disparate psychosocial interventions, pharmacological prescribing interventions, specialist harm reduction, and family interventions on offer? It is simply not enough for the NTA to tell us that the proportion of young intervention according to the goals set out in their care plans’ is 57%. Unless we know what the goals of their care plans are in the first place and what the aspirations are for the young people in question, it is a pretty meaningless statement. As we already know from adult services ‘completing treatment’ may be a measure of virtually nothing.
Source: Institute of Alcohol Studies, Alcohol Alert No.1, 2009

The rates of nonmedical use of prescription drugs among adolescents and young adults in the United States are alarmingly high. Researchers funded in part by NIDA examined whether several universal drug abuse preventive interventions for middle school-age youth could reduce their future nonmedical use of prescription drugs. The interventions, which were administered to both middle school-aged children and their families, were tested in two randomized, controlled studies conducted in the rural Midwest
 The first study tested two different family-based interventions, the Preparing for the Drug Free Years (PDFY) program and the Iowa Strengthening Families Program (ISFP), which focus on teaching families about risk and protective factors for substance use.
 The second study compared the school-based Life Skills Training (LST) intervention program with the Strengthening Family Program for Parents and Youth 10–14 (SFP), a revised version of the family-based ISFP, plus the school-based LST programs.
Both studies followed participants until the age of 21 and also included control groups of students that did not receive any of the interventions being tested. Beginning in the 9th or 10th grade, students were asked about prescription drug abuse.
 Results from both studies showed that teens and young adults who had received the interventions in middle school reported less prescription drug abuse compared with participants who had not received the interventions. The magnitude of the difference depended on the specific intervention received, with the ISFP (in study 1) and SFP programs (in study 2) producing significant decreases in rates of prescription drug abuse. Whether these results can be generalized to other populations (such as nonrural or international populations) and whether the effects of the interventions persist into emerging adulthood years will need to be examined in further studies.
Source: Spoth R, Trudeau L, Shin C, Redmond C. Long-term effects of universal preventive interventions on prescription drug misuse. Addiction. 2008;103(7):1160–1168

A study suggests that school-based prevention programs begun in elementary school can significantly reduce problem behaviors in students. Fifth graders who previously participated in a comprehensive interactive school prevention program for one to four years were about half as likely to engage in substance abuse, violent behavior, or sexual activity as those who did not take part in the program. The study, supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health, will appear in the August 2009 print issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The online version of the article is viewable today.

“This study provides compelling evidence that intervening with young children is a promising approach to preventing drug use and other problem behaviors,” said NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow. “The fact that an intervention beginning in the first grade produced a significant effect on children’s behavior in the fifth grade strengthens the case for initiating prevention programs in elementary school, before most children have begun to engage in problem behaviors.”

The study was conducted in 20 public elementary schools in Hawaii. Participating schools had below-average standardized test scores and diverse student populations with an average of 55 percent of students receiving free or reduced-price lunches.

The intervention tested was Positive Action (PA), a comprehensive K-12 social and emotional development program for enhancing behavior and academic achievement. Schools were randomly assigned from matched pairs to implement PA or not. The program consists of daily 15-20 minute interactive lessons focusing on such topics as responsible self-management, getting along with others, and self-improvement. At schools implementing the intervention, these lessons occupied a total of about one hour a week beginning in the first or second grade.

In fifth grade, 976 students (most aged 10 or 11) responded to a written questionnaire that asked about their use of substances, including tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs; involvement in violent behaviors, such as carrying a knife or threatening someone; and voluntary sexual activity. The total number of students reporting that they had engaged in any of these behaviors was small. Strikingly, however, students exposed to the PA program were about half as likely to report engaging in any of these behaviors as students not exposed to PA. Among students who were exposed to PA, those who had received the lessons for three or more years reported the lowest rates of experience with any of these problem behaviors.

“This study demonstrates that a comprehensive, school wide social and character development program can have a substantial impact on reducing problem behaviors of public health importance in elementary-school-age youth,”said Dr. Brian Flay of Oregon State University, the study’s principal investigator.

PA is an interactive program that integrates teacher/student contact and opportunities for the exchange of ideas as well as feedback and constructive criticism. The program is school wide and involves teachers and parents as well as students. It takes a positive, holistic approach to social and emotional development rather than focusing on the negative aspects of engaging in substance abuse and violence. Finally, at one hour a week, students’ exposure to the program was intensive. “These features likely account for the large effect observed,”concluded Dr. Flay.

Dr. Flay plans to conduct a follow-up study to determine whether the beneficial effects of the PA program on fifth graders are sustained, as the children grow older.
Source: CADCA Coalitions online June 25th 2009

The official figures also show that 10 children under 12 needed treatment because they were dependent on heroin. The extent of the problem was revealed as a survey showed that one in four 16- and 17-year-olds said that they drank alcohol “for something to do”.
In total, 11,294 children under the age of 16 were treated for alcohol and drug dependency last year.
Of these, 4,005 were being treated for alcohol addiction, 57 of them under the age of 12, in 2007-08, the figures obtained by the Conservatives from the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) show. Another 6,075 were treated for cannabis dependency, including 102 under-12s, and 93 for heroin addiction, including 10 under-12s.
In 2006 it was revealed that four children under 11 had been treated for heroin addiction in Scotland, after a 11-year-old girl collapsed in her school classroom after taking the drug. One in four 16- and 17-year-olds say that they drink alcohol “for something to do”, a new survey shows.
More than two thirds, 71 per cent, said they drank at least once a week, while three fifths, 60 per cent, said that they had started to drink alcohol because it was part of “being young and socialising”. On average, teenagers said that they had their first drink at 13 and were just 14 the first time they became properly drunk.
The teenagers were less concerned about getting drunk than about leaving education without any qualifications, having unsafe sex or taking recreational drugs, the survey, by the charity Drinkaware, which is funded by the alcohol industry, found.
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: “It’s a sad indictment of our broken society that so many are turning to things like drug and alcohol abuse at such a young age. “The Government needs to take action now, before it’s too late.
“Tackling these problems has been low on their priority list and Labour’s irresponsible decision to roll out 24-hour drinking on our towns and communities has not helped.” Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “These figures are horrific and serve as a stark warning of the scale of drink and drug use amongst our children.
“Labour’s policies have been completely ineffective at stemming the tide of young people’s addictions.
“We now have thousands of children whose long-term health is being put at risk by this culture of drink and drug dependency.
Chris Sorek, chief executive of Drinkaware, said: “Many young people unintentionally put themselves at risk when they drink alcohol and it is crucial that young people are given the facts about drinking and its effects.
“Under-18s need to know what drinking does to their body and appearance – as well as how to avoid peer pressure and stay safe.”
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk 6th July 2009

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Watching a favorite movie star smoke appears to encourage teen girls to adopt the habit themselves, according to new findings released Tuesday.

Investigators found that girls who said their favorite celebrity was someone who had smoked in at least two recent movies were almost twice as likely to start smoking within the next three years as girls whose favorite stars did not smoke in films.

“Really, smoking in movies is just an effective form of marketing,” study author Dr. John Pierce told Reuters Health .

Pierce, based at the University of California in San Diego, added that it is also common for teens to copy their favorite stars’ clothing, hair and jewelry. Those habits are easy to alter as styles evolve, he said, but once teens become hooked on smoking, “that is something that’s very hard to change.”

Pierce noted that the tobacco industry has argued that it does not pay for actors to smoke on screen, and actors do it simply because it makes them feel more comfortable.

If that is the case, then one could argue that the stars themselves are responsible for encouraging teens to smoke, and should be held accountable for that, Pierce noted.

“If it’s the stars, and they’re liable, then they’d better watch out,” he said.

To investigate whether watching stars smoke on-screen influences teens to do the same, Pierce and his colleagues asked 3104 never-smokers between the ages of 12 and 15 to name their two favorite female stars and two favorite male movie stars.

The researchers reviewed the stars’ movies during the past 3 years, and counted them as smokers if they puffed during at least two films. They then re-interviewed teens three years later, to see how many had started smoking.

When Pierce and his team first contacted teens in 1996, the most popular stars among teen girls were Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock and Leonardo DiCaprio. Favorite actors for boys were Pamela Anderson, Sandra Bullock and Demi Moore. More than 40 percent of girls and 30 percent of boys had favorite stars who smoked.

Favorite stars who did not smoke on-screen included Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise.

Although girls appeared to be influenced by the smoking habits of favorite stars, boys were not, the authors report in the American Journal of Public Health.

They note that research has shown that boys tend to prefer action movies, which tend to include less smoking by stars, while girls prefer more smoke-filled romances and dramas.

Pierce explained that his team also measured each child’s susceptibility to smoking — defined as being unwilling to rule out the option of future smoking. This removed the possibility that only those who were susceptible to smoking would have a favorite star who smoked on-screen, he said.

Dr. Stanton Glantz of the University of California in San Francisco, who was not an author of the paper, noted that research shows that the more teens see people smoke, the more likely they are to pick up the habit. The latest findings suggest that policymakers should strictly limit teens’ exposure to on-screen smoking, he said.

Restricting smoking to R-rated movies would apply “the same rules that Hollywood applies to saying the F-word,” Glantz said.

Almost a third (29%) of Welsh girls aged 15 to 16 admit they smoke on a weekly basis, a new study by the National Public Health Service for Wales has revealed. Among boys of the same aged, 20% admitted to smoking regularly. The report examined a range of determinants of health including alcohol, drug use, socio-economic background, exercise and diet.

The South Wales Echo report includes a case study of one 28-year old who started smoking at the age of 14. She comments: “When I was 16 I was going out more and I would smoke about a pack a week. By the time I was 19 I was smoking about five packs a week. Of course I regret it now – my face is a prune! I wish I had never smoked because it’s really hard to stop and I could die of lung cancer.”

Research conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health concludes that reducing marketing around college campuses would reduce binge drinking among college students, Reuters reported Sept. 12.

For the study, researchers went to alcohol-serving establishments near 118 U.S. college campuses to determine if there was a link between drinking habits and marketing promotions or advertising. Visits were made to 830 bars, restaurants, and nightclubs and 1,684 liquor stores and other retailers.

The researchers found that campuses with a high number of places either selling beer in volume packages or featuring frequent price promotions had the highest rates of binge drinking.

“It’s not just the advertising dollars. It’s the five-cent and 25-cent beers, it’s the extra pitcher of beer for a penny, it’s the $5 refillable cup. It’s not simply that these things make people drink, but that they make people drink much more,” said Henry Wechsler, lead researcher and director of Harvard’s college alcohol studies program.

The researchers concluded that binge drinking among college students could be limited by controlling the marketing of beer and other alcoholic beverages near campuses.

“You’re not going to make great headway with college binge drinking unless you address the issue of the alcohol environment that envelopes most colleges,” said Wechsler.

The study’s findings were met with criticism from the American Beverage Institute, a lobbying group that represents chain restaurants. The organization said alcohol problems on college campuses are a result of “abusers.”

“What they’re really looking for is a reduction of drinking among all Americans, including responsible adults,” said American Beverage Institute Executive Director John Doyle.

According to a new report, more teens first try marijuana in June and July than any other months of the year. To help parents prevent their teen from using marijuana this summer, the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, the YMCA of the USA, and the American Camping Association kicked off this year’s “School’s Out” initiative.

The Media Campaign is offering new action-oriented advice and resources to help parents keep teens drug-free once school is out; a summer drug-free checklist, a summer calendar with suggested activities, and an interactive self-rating tool (Does Your Summer Plan Stand the Heat?). These resources are available on the Campaign’s Web site for parents at www.TheAntiDrug.com/SchoolsOut.

A Health Canada survey finds that more 12- to 19-year-old Canadians smoke marijuana regularly than use tobacco, putting use of the drug at the highest level in 25 years, the Ottawa Citizen reported Oct. 29.

“Research we have conducted on 12- to 19-year-olds shows us that marijuana has gone mainstream and is well integrated into teen lifestyle,” said Linda Dabros, a special adviser to Health Canada’s director general of drug strategy.

According to the survey of 1,250 teens, 34 percent of 12- to 19-year-olds said they had smoked marijuana more than once, while 22 percent of teens said they smoke cigarettes regularly.

“Youth rates are going up and are at levels that we haven’t seen since the late ’70s, when rates reached their peak,” said Richard Garlick, a spokesman for the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse.

Canada is currently considering a measure that would decriminalize marijuana.

The 2003 Teens Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS), released by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA), says that more teens are recognizing the risks of marijuana and, as a result, may be less likely to start using the drug, according to a Feb. 25 news release from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The survey also found an increase in the number of teens who have seen or heard anti-drug advertisements since the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign began in 1998.

According to the study, 52 percent of teens were exposed to anti-drug ads in 2003, compared with 32 percent in 1998. Furthermore, one in three teens in 2003 said they “learned a lot” about the risks of drugs from the ads, compared with one in five in 1998.

“The PATS survey reinforces earlier reports that showed an 11-percent drop in youth drug use … This research shows many understand the risks associated with marijuana use,” said John Walters, director of the ONDCP. “We hope this growing awareness will keep teens from using marijuana themselves and encourage them to take action when a friend is using.”

The survey also found that more teens are aware of the potential risks of using marijuana, such as getting in trouble with the law, losing their driver’s license, or not getting into a good college.

More youth entering treatment facilities in 2001 are using marijuana, according to a Jan. 29 news release from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

The Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) for 2001 found a 49-percent increase in adolescent admissions to treatment facilities that receive public funding from 1992 to 2001. According to the data, 141,403 children ages 12-17 were admitted to treatment in 2001, compared to 95,000 in 1992.

The TEDS further found that 62 percent of the adolescent admissions in 2001 were linked to marijuana misuse, up from 23 percent in 1992.

“The increase in youth admissions to drug treatment is the continued fallout from the rise in marijuana use by young people in the 1990′s,” said SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie. “Unfortunately, many of these young people are not getting help until they become entangled in the criminal-justice system.”

TEDS also indicated that marijuana use is beginning at an early age, with 26 percent of the adolescents admitted to treatment first using marijuana by age 12 and 56 percent by age 14.

Washington, DC – More than a quarter of radio ads for alcohol in the summer of 2003 would not have been in compliance with the alcohol industry’s revised marketing codes announced in September 2003, a new study by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at Georgetown University finds.

The Center, working with Virtual Media Resources, an independent media planning and research firm, analyzed 51,883 airings of 106 different ads for beer, distilled spirits, wine and flavored malt beverages, commonly known as “alcopops.” The ads aired in 104 markets across the country from June 15 to July 31, 2003. The analysis shows that 28% of these airings occurred when underage youth were more than 30% of the listening audience.

More specifically, the study shows that a number of brands placed a significant percentage of ads where underage youth constituted more than 30% of the listening audience. For instance, 52% of the Heineken radio ads, 42% of the Amstel Light radio ads, 42% of the Corona Extra radio ads and 35% of the Miller Lite radio ads aired when more than 30% of the listening audience was underage youth, 12-20.

In September 2003, the Beer Institute and the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) announced stricter guidelines for ad placement by their member companies. According to these revised industry marketing codes, underage youth should not constitute more than 30% — a change from 50% — of the audience for alcohol ads.

“The alcohol industry will have to reform its advertising practices on radio dramatically to comply with the new marketing code provisions,” said David H. Jernigan, CAMY research director. “Even more importantly, these findings underscore the importance of tracking and monitoring these ads so parents and the rest of the public can be assured that these reforms are taking place,” Jernigan said.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences released a major report in September 2003 outlining a national strategy to reduce underage drinking. Among the recommendations for the federal government, the IOM called on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to monitor the advertising practices of the alcohol industry on a continuing basis and periodically report its findings to Congress and the public.

In the pending omnibus appropriations bill for FY 2004, Congress directs HHS to act on the IOM recommendations and report back within 90 days from passage on its plan to reduce underage drinking.

Summary of Findings

The Center’s analysis of alcohol radio advertising during the summer of 2003 examined whether ads were placed above the industry’s ad placement threshold and whether ads were more likely to be heard, on a per capita basis, by underage youth, 12-20, or by legal-age adults.

To analyze whether underage youth were more likely, on a per capita basis, to hear the alcohol ads on radio, the Center used a standard advertising industry measure of gross ratings points (GRPs). This provides for the population-weighting of exposure to advertising since there are always more adults than youth in a population.

In 14 of the 15 largest radio markets in the United States by population, underage youth were more likely, on a per capita basis, to hear the alcohol ads than adults over 21. In five of the 15 markets, namely Chicago, San Francisco, Houston-Galveston, Washington, D.C., and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood, underage youth were more likely to hear the radio ads than young adults, ages 21-34.

The Center’s analysis also found that four radio formats — urban contemporary, alternative, rhythmic contemporary hit, and pop contemporary hit — accounted for almost three-quarters of the underage youth exposure to alcohol advertising on radio.

Radio is a popular medium among America’s youth. Over the course of a week, the average teenager listens to 13.5 hours of radio. By comparison, he or she spends 10.6 hours per week watching television, 7.6 hours online, and 3.3 hours reading magazines for pleasure. For advertisers, radio offers targeted selection of an audience, because station formats appeal to narrow demographics.

A University of Michigan study concludes that children who had trouble sleeping at ages 3 to 5 may be at a greater risk for drinking, smoking and using drugs as a teenager, Reuters reported April 14.

For the study, researchers interviewed the mothers of 257 boys between the ages of 3 and 5 about their sleep habits. Follow-up interviews were conducted with the families at three-year intervals until the children were between the ages of 12 and 14. The older children were asked by researchers whether they had tried alcohol, cigarettes, or other drugs.

The research found that one-third of the boys had trouble sleeping or were overtired as children. These children, the study showed, were twice as likely as other boys to experiment with drugs by the time they were 12 to 14 years old.

Study author Dr. Maria Wong said the research also showed that problem sleepers were more likely to exhibit symptoms of anxiety or depression and have attention problems later in life.

Wong said that those who had early sleep problems might have turned to alcohol and other drugs to relieve “physical distress.” Others may be turning to drugs because of underlying brain differences.

The study’s findings are published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

The University of Colorado at Boulder, ranked among the top party schools in the country, will require incoming freshmen to take an Internet-based course about alcohol use and misuse.

“We are trying to provide a bottom-line common experience for all students,” said Robert Maust, principal investigator for the school’s A Matter of Degree program. “Then we will be able to say that you know at least that much.”

Maust said he is deciding between two Internet alcohol and drug education programs, “Alcohol EDU” and “My Student Body.” A final decision on which course the university will use will be announced shortly.

The course, required as of this fall, will be customized according to each student’s knowledge about alcohol use. Students will also be surveyed about personal perceptions of alcohol use at college and be given feedback and educational information based on their responses.

The course would take about one to two hours to complete.

A report by Georgetown University’s Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth found a 39-percent increase in the number of alcohol ads aired on local and cable television in 2002 compared to the previous year. The report also concluded that a greater number of teens are being exposed to alcohol ads on television.   According to the report, there were 289,381 alcohol ads on television in 2002, with a significant increase in ads for distilled spirits and low-alcohol beverages. On a per-capita basis, the study found that more teens than adults saw 66,218 of the ads, a 30 percent increase over 2001. Television shows that attract a large teen audience, such as “Survivor,” “Fear Factor” and “That ’70s Show,” included alcohol ads.

“This dramatic increase in alcohol ads seen by our children in 2002 suggests the problem got worse,” said Jim O’Hara, executive director of the center. “The data demonstrate that the alcohol industry needs to make major changes in its advertising.”

The Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. (DISCUS) disputed the findings. The industry contends that the “vast majority of alcohol ads are viewed by adults and that self-regulation is working.”

“To make further progress on underage drinking, we must focus on science-based solutions. Study after study shows that parents and other adults are the primary influence over a youth’s decision regarding drinking, not advertising,” said Peter Cressy, president of DISCUS.

A new study released by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) says that ecstasy use among teens has dropped 25 percent in the last two years, the Associated Press reported Feb. 25. 

According to the annual survey, teen ecstasy use dropped from 12 percent in 2001 to 9 percent in 2003. 

Despite the decline, Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of the PDFA, said the drug is still a problem. 

“The ecstasy threat remains: Last year, 2 million teenagers in America had tried this drug,” Pasierb said. “We can and we must kick ecstasy while it’s down, and kick it down further.” 

The study also found a reduction in overall drug use by teens. Declines were seen in marijuana, LSD, and methamphetamine use. 

However, the study indicated areas of concern, including a growing use of inhalants and misuse of prescription drugs. 

The study was based on data collected from questionnaires completed anonymously by 7,270 adolescents nationwide between April and June 2003 

New data indicates that youth in Washington are taking the advice offered in the anti-tobacco ads being run by the Washington State Department of Health. 

According to the latest report from Sedgwick Rd., the Seattle advertising agency that created the ads, 80 percent of Washington youth had seen the anti-smoking advertisements. Furthermore, 94 percent of those who had seen the ads said they gave them good reasons not to smoke. 

“The effectiveness of our advertising efforts lies in the extensive investigation we did with Washington state youth about what catches their attention most,” said Terry Reid, manager of the state Department of Health Tobacco Prevention and Control Program. “Our ads speak directly to youth who are at risk for smoking, with messages specifically designed to get their attention and give them the hard facts.” 

The ads are part of the state’s comprehensive Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, which began in July 2000. The campaign also includes radio, print, and Web-based ads, community outreach, support services, and school-based education programs. 

Since the start of the statewide campaign, the number of Washington 10th-graders who smoke has dropped by 40 percent. 

“We’re creating real and lasting change in Washington,” said Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. “Still, we have more work to do; about 55 kids start smoking every day in our state. Our new ad campaign will help us reach more youth so we can convince them to quit smoking or never start.” 

 (Chicago, IL)—According to a new National Survey on Drug Use and Health report released today, more teens first try marijuana in June and July than any other months of the year. To help parents prevent their teen from using marijuana this summer, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, the YMCA of the USA, and the American Camping Association today kicked off this year’s “School’s Out” initiative. 

Today’s report, “Seasonality of Youth’s First-Time Use of Marijuana, Cigarettes or Alcohol,” from the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows a 40 percent increase in first-time youth marijuana use during June and July, compared to the rest of the year. Each day in June and July an average of 6,300 youth try marijuana for the first time. The number of new underage drinkers and cigarette smokers also jumps during the summer months. 

“Youth marijuana use has declined by 11 percent over the past two years. Despite the good news, the battle of reducing teen drug use is not yet over,” said John P. Walters, Director of National Drug Control Policy. “Kids may equate summer with freedom, but for parents, it’s when they need to be even more involved in their teens’ lives. As soon as they pack up their locker for the year and step out of school, kids are much more likely to try marijuana. By keeping teens busy, knowing who they’re with and making sure they’re supervised, parents can help prevent their teen’s summer from going to pot.” “Marijuana use damages lungs, impairs learning, and decreases motivation. Kids who use marijuana in early adolescence are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, such as delinquency, engaging in sexual activity, driving while high or underage drinking. They are also more likely to perceive drugs as not harmful and have more friends who exhibit deviant behavior,” said Daniel Angres, M.D., founder and director of Rush Behavioral Health in Illinois. 

The increase in new marijuana use is likely due to teens having more unsupervised and unstructured time in the summer. Research shows that unmonitored teens are four times more likely to use marijuana or engage in other risky behaviors. “In order to address this problem, teens need to have access to a variety of activities that will interest and engage them during the summer months,” said Kenneth L. Gladish, Ph.D., National Executive Director, YMCA of the USA. “At their local YMCAs, teens can participate in a wide-range of structured and diverse programs year round that give them the opportunity for positive engagement and allow them to develop character, leadership, and skills to last a lifetime.”

“As partners in parenting, camps create a positive community for youth to practice growing up, providing windows of opportunity to establish individual value systems that help them feel productive, connected, and able to navigate,” said Marla Coleman, President of the American Camping Association. “Camp counselors are important role models and mentors to kids, helping them identify critical values and make positive choices in life.”

Research shows that parents are the most powerful influence on their teen when it comes to drugs. In fact, two-thirds of youth ages 13–17 say fear of upsetting their parents or losing the respect of family and friends is one of the main reasons they don’t smoke marijuana or use other drugs. 

The Media Campaign is offering new action-oriented advice and resources to help parents keep teens drug-free once school is out, including a summer drug-free checklist, a summer calendar with suggested activities, and an interactive self-rating tool (Does Your Summer Plan Stand the Heat?) to see if their teen will be safe this summer. These resources are available on the Campaign’s Web site for parents at www.TheAntiDrug.com/SchoolsOut. The Campaign also offers online materials for community organizations at www.MediaCampaign.org; for employers at http://www.TheAntiDrug.com/atwork; and for youth at www.Freevibe.com. The Campaign is partnering with the YMCA of the USA and the American Camping Association to reach teens, parents and adult influencers such as coaches and camp counselors with marijuana prevention messages this summer. 

 In a survey of 10,000 pupils the survey found:

1 in 3 15 year olds has smoked cannabis
18% of pupils aged 11-18 had taken drugs in previous 12 months
13% had tried cannabis in previous year 
Drug use in 2001 = 20%
Drug use in 2002 = 18% – a slight decrease.

Researchers say that the reward center in an adolescent’s brain isn’t as fully developed or responsive as an adult’s, which could explain why teens tend to engage in risky behaviors such as consuming alcohol, using drugs, or having unsafe sex. 

Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers scanned the brains of 12 teens aged 12 to 17 and 12 young adults aged 22 to 28. During the scan, participants played a game that involved monetary risk and reward. 

In comparing the scans, the researchers found that the ventral stratium, the section of the brain known as the reward center, showed increased activity as the reward increased for both groups. However, the right ventral stratium, which is responsible for motivation, showed more activation in adult participants than in the teens. 

“That region of the brain controls how much an organism is willing to work to get a reward,” Bjork said. “The data show that adolescents are just as happy and excited at the prospect of winning as adults, but they differed in the expenditure of effort for that reward.” 

The researchers concluded that adolescents are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, such as alcohol and other drug use, because they involve little effort but provide a greater reward in return. 

The research also may explain why teens sometimes seem unmotivated to adults. “Adults have readily active motivation in the brain,” said study co-author James Bjork, a research fellow in the Laboratory of Clinical Studies at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “But it may take exceptionally strong incentives to get kids jazzed up.”

Fewer American kids are smoking pot and taking LSD and Ecstasy, according to a government report based on 2003 numbers. However, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health also shows more are abusing prescription drugs. The data show a 5 percent decline in the number of 12- to 17-year-olds who say they have smoked marijuana. A little more than 6 percent of teens, 14.6 million people, use marijuana. 

That rate, along with the rates for cocaine, hallucinogens and heroin, were similar to 2002 rates. The survey shows greater drops among those in the same age group using Ecstasy and LSD, down 41 percent and 54 percent, respectively. 

Teens reported drops in use of specific drugs during the last year from the 2002 study: 

• LSD use went from 1.3 percent to 0.6 percent 
• Ecstasy use went from 2.2 percent to 1.3 percent 
• Methamphetamine use dropped from 0.9 percent to 0.7 percent. 

However, the survey found more people had tried prescription drugs when they didn’t need them for medical reasons. An estimated 6.3 million — 2.7 percent of the population over 12 — took unprescribed drugs. An estimated 4.7 million used pain relievers, 1.8 million used tranquilizers, 1.2 million used stimulants and 300,000 used sedatives. About 10.9 million teenagers reported drinking alcohol in the month prior to the survey interview in 2003 — 29 percent of the group. These 2003 rates were essentially the same as those obtained from the 2002 survey. 

An estimated 13.6 percent of people 12 or older drove under the influence of alcohol at least once in the 12 months prior to the interview in 2003 (a decrease from 14.2 percent in 2002). These percentages represent 32.3 million people in 2003 and 33.5 million people in 2002. Tobacco Use Overall, the study indicates 20 million people age 12 and older — including adults — were using illegal drugs within a month of the survey. That’s 8.2 percent of the population. 

The overall rate of drug use did not change from 2002 to 2003. Varying ethnic groups showed different levels of illicit drug use: 

• American Indians/Alaska natives — 12.1 percent 
• Reporting two or more races — 12 percent 
• Pacific Islanders — 11.1 percent 
• Blacks — 8.7 percent 
• Whites — 8.3 percent 
• Hispanics — 8 percent 
• Asians — 3.8 percent 

Unemployed adults had an 18.2 percent rate of current drug use, while those working full time came in at 7.9 percent. 

Health officials are warning parents that more teenagers are mixing stimulants like Ritalin with inhalants like correction fluid and room deodorizers, the Cincinnati Post reported March 25.According to health officials, there has been a rise in the number of teens and children as young as age 10 who have died from the drug combination.

“I would be primarily and most concerned about a potential fatal interaction, [with] the Ritalin having an adrenalin-like effect [enhancing] the possibility of Sudden Sniffing Death in the individual huffing the correction fluid,” said Dr. Earl Siegel, co-director of the Drug and Poison Information Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio.

According to Siegel, the combination of Ritalin and “huffing” disturbs heart rhythm.

Source:Cincinnati Post March 2004

Father Chris Reilly has helped tens of thousands of troubled teenagers try and overcome their addiction. He says one of the problems is many people are unaware of how significantly the drug has changed.

“People who are advocating it from the ’60s haven’t factored in to it that this [cannabis] is now 70 to 90 percent stronger than what they were using back in the old days,” he says.

For Chris, who was once addicted to marijuana, the experience was all-consuming.

“People think it’s harmless, they don’t take it as a harmful drug – that’s probably why,” he says. “People don’t know much about it. I had drug-induced psychosis and went to jail for a night.”

Similarly, Rupert also suffered terribly while addicted to cannabis.

Youth who say their parents would ‘strongly disapprove if they tried marijuana once or twice” used any illicit drug at a rate of 7.1 per cent, compared with 31.2 per cent for youth who thought their parents “did not strongly disapprove.”

A new study from Yale suggests that drug addiction should be thought of as a developmental disorder, because the changing circuitry of teenagers brains appears to leave them especially vulnerable to the effects of drugs and alcohol. Dr. R. Andrew Chambers of the Yale School of Medicine, lead author of the article: said addictive drugs worked by stimulating parts of the brain that are changing rapidly in adolescence. In particular, Dr. Chambers said, the drugs tap into a neural imbalance that may underlie teenagers affinity for impulsive and risky behaviour. The circuitry that releases chemicals that associate novel experiences with the motivation to repeat them develops far more quickly in adolescence than the mechanisms that inhibit urges and impulses. As a result he said, teenagers are not only more likely to experiment with drugs than other groups, but the experience also has more profound effects on the brain – and sometimes permanent ones. The article, published in the June issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, was based on a review of 140 earlier studies. Dr. Chambers wrote that although it had long been known that most addicts began using drugs in adolescence, most research into the mechanisms of addictions or treatment focused on adults.

Shifting to a model that links vulnerability to normal developmental changes in the brain could lead to new methods of prevention or ways of singling out teenagers at higher risk for drug use, he said. Dr. Chambers acknowledged that social factors appeared to play a role in drug addiction but said they did not account entirely for greater levels of drug use among adolescents. His analysis covered three aspects of teenage behaviour and their basis in brain functioning – attraction to novelty, less than adult levels of judgment and an overriding interest in sex. Teenagers are drawn to new activities and experiences, a process that Dr. Chambers referred to as “the expansion of their motivational repertory.” “That’s a good thing.” he said, “because adolescents have to earn how to be adults.” But to aid the process, the motivational circuitry of the brain – the complex of chemical reactions that make certain experiences more desirable than others – is also rapidly expanding. It is this circuitry, centred on the chemical dopamine, that is at the heart of the addictive effects of a wide range of drugs as different as cocaine and alcohol, Dr. Chambers said.

At the same time the parts of the frontal cortex that are activated by adults when they weigh risks and rewards lag developmentally. You have a situation where the motivational brain areas are particularly active,” Dr. Chambers said, “and the part of the brain that is supposed to inhibit impulses is not working well, because it is sort of under construction.” The other port of the equation lies in a number of brain regions that are reshaped in adolescence as they respond to soaring levels of sex hormones, Dr. Chambers said that rapid change seemed to leave young people unusually attuned to all sorts of new social and sexual stimulation, which in turn appeared to make the brain more open to the addictive effect of drugs.

A new survey finds that unsupervised teens are four times more likely to be D students than teens supervised every day. The survey, After School for America’s Teens, released by YMCA of the USA, finds that 59 percent of teens are unsupervised after school at least one day in a typical week. And those teens are more likely to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and engage in sexual activity, nearly three times as likely to skip classes at school. They are also three times more likely to use marijuana or other drugs.
The survey of 500 teens 14-17 years of age reveals a strong interest in community and neighbourhood-based after school programs. Although many teenagers participate in after school programs, more than half of all teens (52 percent) wish there were more community or neighbourhood-based activities available. Some 62 percent of teens left alone during the week say they would likely participate in after school programs, while two in three teens (67 percent) expressed interest in programs that would improve their grades, develop leadership skills and involve them in the community.
Unsupervised teens are in the ‘Danger Zone’ the hours of 3 to 6 p.m. after school  when being unsupervised can lead to problems with alcohol, drugs, sexual activity and even crime. This danger cuts across race income and family structure, according to the University of Minnesota’s National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the largest-ever survey of American adolescents. Teens who are failing school and “hanging out” with friends are more likely to engage in at-risk behaviours.
The After School survey revealed that teens who do not engage in after school activities are five times more likely to be D students than those who do, while nearly eight in 10 teens (79 percent) who participate in after school programs are A or B students. Only half (52 percent) of teens who do not participate earn such high marks.

In 2001. over 8 million persons aged 12 or older reported using Ecstasy at least once in their lifetime. The majority of past year Ecstasy users were young adults 18 to 25. Past year Ecstasy users aged 12 to 25 were more likely to have used other types of illicit drugs in the past year than those who did not use Ecstasy in the past year.

A University of California study shows that teens who work more than 10 hours a week tend to consume  alcohol more heavily than those who work fewer hours or not at all. According to the study of more than 6,500 adolescents, 24 percent of the teenagers who worked more than 10 hours said they drank heavily within the past year. On the other hand, fewer than 10 percent of the teens who worked less hours or not at all reported heavy drinking.
“One of the most consistent and troubling discoveries is that the more adolescents work, the more they drink”, said lead researcher Mallie Paschall. Paschall speculated that working more than 10 hours gives teens the added income to purchase alcohol. In addition, work relationships with older teens and adults who drink may lead them to believe that heavy drinking is socially acceptable.

RAC Foundation research suggests that drug—driving is now a bigger problem than drink-driving among 17—24 years olds. Edmund King of the RAC Foundation said: “We hear that more people smoke cannabis as a recreational drug. The danger now is that mixing that with alcohol could produce a deadly cocktail that motorists may not be aware of. Cannabis may make people feel more laid back but combined with alcohol gives them the impetus to drive. They may think they are not over the limit  and in fact could be under the drink-drive limit,  but still be more dangerous.”

The  Social Trends report, published recently by the British Office of National Statistics, paints a gloomy picture of the lives of British children. According to the report, the kids are smoking, drinking and taking drugs more than ever before.

In general, youngsters drink twice as much as they did 10 years ago. Boys as young as 11-13 consume 8.4 units of alcohol (equivalent of 4 pints of beer) every week. In the early 1990s, the boys of that age group consumed around 3 units of alcohol. The drinking habits of girls aged 11-15 have jumped from 4.7 units to 9.1 units per week in 10 years. More than 60% of the 15-year-olds answering the survey said they had been offered illegal drugs. The amount of children  that had tried illicit drugs increased to 14% from 11% in 1998. Out of these, most had smoked marijuana. Almost 25% of the 15-year-olds smoke tobacco regularly.

Australia, drug experts are blaming the flood of so-called designer drinks and sodas on the market for a sharp rise in youth alcoholism. Young people are starting to drink earlier and with greater intensity than ever before. In the last comprehensive survey conducted in 1998, half a million teenagers confessed to drinking every week, a quarter of those downing seven or more drinks at each session. Drug experts say the rise in youth alcoholism in recent years can be linked directly to aggressive marketing strategies, and that tougher regulation of the alcohol industry is needed. The industry needs to be held accountable, to ensure that it markets its products responsibly, and stops producing products designed for junior palates, which make alcohol more appealing to very young people.

Objective: To determine whether cannabis use in adolescence predisposes to higher rates of depression and anxiety in young adulthood.

Design: Seven wave cohort study over six years.

Setting: 44 schools in the Australian state of Victoria
.
Participants: A state wide secondary school sample of 1601 students aged 14-15 followed for seven years.

Main outcome measure: Interview measure of depression and anxiety (revised clinical interview schedule) at wave 7.

Results: Some 60% of participants had used cannabis by the age of 20; 7% were daily users at that point. Daily use in young women was associated with an over fivefold increase in the odds of reporting a state of depression and anxiety after adjustment for intercurrent use of other substances (odds ratio 5.6, 95% confidence interval 2.6 to 12). Weekly or more frequent cannabis use in teenagers predicted an approximately twofold increase in risk for later depression and anxiety (1.9, 1.1 to 3.3) after adjustment for potential baseline confounders. In contrast, depression and anxiety in teenagers predicted neither later weekly nor daily cannabis use.
Conclusions: Frequent cannabis use in teenage girls predicts later depression and anxiety, with daily users carrying the highest risk. Given recent increasing levels of cannabis use, measures to reduce frequent and heavy recreational use seem warranted.

There is evidence that individuals who start to smoke marijuana at an early age-while the brain is still developing-show deficits in cognition that are not seen in individuals who begin use of the drug when they are older. The reasons for this difference are unclear. Scientists from the Harvard Medical School and from the intramural research program of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found lasting cognitive deficits in those who started to smoke marijuana before age 17. The researchers analyzed neuropsychological test results from 122 long-term heavy users of marijuana and 87 subjects who had used marijuana only a few times (control subjects). Sixty-nine of the 122 users started using marijuana at age 17 or before. The subjects were between the ages of 30 and 55 at the time of the study, and all had refrained from any drug use 28 days prior to testing.

Individuals who started using marijuana at age 17 or younger performed significantly worse on the tests assessing verbal functions such as verbal IQ and memory of word lists than did those who started using marijuana later in life or who had used the drug sparingly. There were virtually no differences in test results among the individuals who started marijuana use after age 17 and the control subjects.Youth who use marijuana before their mid-teens may show long-term deficits in certain verbal skills-but the reasons for these deficits are not yet clear.

Between 1995 and 2002, there was a 163 percent increase in the number of emergency room visitis tied to the abuse of prescription drugs according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency. SAMSHA estimates 9 million people now abuse prescription drugs, meaning they use them for nonmedical,and often recreational,purposes.Three million abusers are kids between the ages of 12 and 17 years old. And the abuse can be deadly:Prescription drugs now play a factor in a quarter of all overdose deaths reported in the US.
US drug officials say this represents a dramatic surge – one that took them by surprise. It has presented a whole new set of challenges, such as a lack of law- enforcement resources to track down shadowy Internet sites and unethical doctors and pharmacists. Another key issue: finding a way to balance any law- enforcement measures with the needs of legitimate online pharmacies that have helped the elderly and others save money and time.Federal officials have decided one way to combat the problem is with education. SAMHSA and the Food and Drug Administration have launched a national campaign to warn people that the misuse of prescription drugs is dangerous, as well as illegal.
A complex array of factors has led to the spike in abuse of prescription drugs. There’s the overall increase in the legitimate use of prescription drugs as a society. For instance, since 1995, the number of Ritalin prescriptions written by doctors has quadrupled. During that same time, the stimulant became a favorite recreational drug among teens.
The number of OxyContin prescriptions written between 1996 and 2000 increased 20-fold. One theory contends that the increase in HIV and hepatitis C has prompted some illegal substance abusers to switch to prescription drugs like OxyContin, which can have an effect similar to heroin.
The rise of the Internet has been another factor. Since 1999, online pharmacies – legitimate and otherwise – have mushroomed, giving youth and addicts alike what appears to be easy access to the drug of their choice.

The family medicine cabinet, now being “pharmed” by kids looking for drugs over the counter, prescription, whatever they can get their hands on. What happens next is frightening.

According to Pat Connors, substance abuse expert, “They’ll combine them all together in a bag or a hat or whatever, pass it around, take a handful, and then sit back to see what happens to them.”The consequences, for better or worse, are soon obvious. But for doctors, the results of
‘Pharming” are a mystery.
“When a teenager takes unknown pills and is unable to describe the pills, we’re left with a conundrum,” says Dr. Russell Harris, chief of emergency medicine at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center. “It could be any host of medications so it’s the fear of the unknown and missing something
that’s potentially dangerous.”And when a prescription mix isn’t available, there’s an even easier option. High doses of over-the-counter drugs, like cough medicine.
“Everyone assumes that the FDA has approved everything and it’s very safe,” says Dr. Harris.While the abuse of over-the-counter drugs is nothing new, studies now show it’s most common among 12 to 17 year olds. In fact, adolescents are 18 times more likely to die from an over-the-counter overdose than from an illicit drug overdose.”What’s new is the nonchalance with which these teenagers seem to be approaching it,” says Dr.
Harris. “When you’re taking things in a larger amount, the medications in the long term may affect the liver, which we may not see till days or weeks later.”And the concern, as always, is what may come next.
“With abuse, the addiction potential can happen very rapidly,” says Connors.

The influence of family and peers on adolescent substance abuse has been well documented in the scientific literature. Generally, positive family influences, such as family bonding and consistent rules, appear to reduce the risk of tobacco, marijuana, and other drug abuse among teens, while negative family influences tend to increase risk. The same is true of positive and negative peer factors. Little research, however, has been conducted to see how parental and peer factors interact to influence adolescents’ initiation to and young adults’ use of drugs.

Two new NIDA-funded studies–one looking at initiation of substance use, the other at continued substance abuse–show that some aspects of family and peer influences remain potent from early initiation into young adulthood and across socioeconomic, ethnic, and gender lines. Both studies yielded surprises and implications for intervention. For example, the first study found that although family and peer factors had similar effects on males and females, family monitoring and rules had a stronger protective effect for males than females. The second study found that for either gender, peer influence was not mediated by the quality of the relationship, except for female peer influence on young adult marijuana use.

Impact of Family on Teens’ Initiation to Drugs
University of Washington researchers recruited 808 5th-graders from 18 Seattle elementary schools in high-crime areas and followed them from ages 12 to 21 to see how peer, family, and sociodemographic factors interacted to influence drug initiation.

As part of an ongoing NIDA study directed by Dr. J. David Hawkins, data from this group were gathered annually through age 16 and again at 18 and 21. The sample included a high proportion of low-income families, “but not all children came from homes in high-risk neighborhoods,” says Dr. Karl Hill, one of the study’s authors. Of concern were the extent of bonding to family, family involvement (time spent interacting with parents), family conflict resolution and parenting practices (monitoring, rules, and consistent discipline), peers’ prosocial and antisocial activities, and measures of use for tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, tranquilizers, sedatives, and psychedelics.

Initiation of illicit drug use for the entire study group was 4.6 percent by age 12, 8.4 percent by age 13, 12.6 percent by age 18, and 40.5 percent by age 21. By age 21, 45.4 percent of male participants had initiated illicit drug use, as had 35.5 percent of females. Native Americans had the highest rate of initiation, at 55.9 percent, compared to 53.6 percent of European Americans, 33.3 percent of African Americans, and 14.6 percent of Asian Americans.

All of the measured family factors were influential, with the terms low level referring to families in the lowest 10 percent for a specific factor and high level referring to those in the highest 10 percent. Higher levels of family monitoring and rules were associated with a “significantly” lower risk of illicit drug initiation, according to Dr. Hill. For example, youths with low levels of family monitoring and rules at age 18 were twice as likely (14 percent versus 7 percent) to initiate illicit drugs as those with high family monitoring. The same was true for a higher level of moderate and consistent family discipline–youths with low consistent family discipline were over twice as likely (15 percent versus 6 percent) at age 18 to initiate illicit drugs as those with high consistent family discipline.

Family Bonding and Peer Antisocial Activity Impact Drug Initiation Among Adolescents

Low levels of family bonding and high levels of peer antisocial activity were consistently associated with higher prevalence of illicit drug initiation among youths ages 12 to 21 compared with prevalence seen when high levels of family bonding and low levels of peer antisocial activity were present. By age 21, however, a high level of family bonding had far less impact than in earlier years on adolescent drug initiation.

Family bonding was particularly influential before the age of 18–youths with low family bonding at age 15 were three times more likely (9 percent versus 3 percent) to initiate illicit drugs than those with high family bonding. Higher levels of family conflict were associated with a higher risk of initiation. For example, youths with high family conflict at age 18 were over twice as likely (15 percent versus 6 percent) to initiate illicit drugs as those with low family conflict. High levels of peer antisocial activity, especially after age 15, found youths at age 18 nearly four times as likely (19 percent versus 5 percent) to initiate illicit drugs as those with low antisocial peer influence (in the bottom 10 percent).

Family monitoring and rules seemed to reduce the risk of initiation primarily by affecting the child’s choice of peer groups. “Some family factors operate through peers and some are independent of peer groups,” Dr. Hill explains. “Kids with low bonding to parents are more likely to get involved with narcotics and stimulants, even if they don’t hang out with bad peers. So you end up with this set of independent risks with high family conflict, low bonding, and bad peer involvement. All these things stack the deck toward initiation of serious drug use.

“In general, family and peer factors had similar effects on boys and girls,” Dr. Hill observes. “Only family monitoring and rules had a stronger protective effect for males than for females.” Family monitoring and bonding were more predictive for European Americans than for African Americans. Otherwise, says Dr. Hill, “family and peer factors affecting illicit drug initiation were similar across gender and ethnic groups.”

The message is clear: Family factors matter. “The impact of only one factor–family bonding–begins to decline after age 18,” Dr. Hill says. Peer factors also matter. Having antisocial peers, especially after age 15, increases the risk of drug initiation. “Both sets of influences contribute,” he says, “even after controlling for sociodemographic background and prior alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana initiation.”

In terms of intervention, “family and peer factors should be important targets for preventive efforts,” Dr. Hill says. The effort should start early and continue into the twenties, emphasizing family bonding early and family monitoring, rules, and reduction of conflict throughout. “Programs that address these family and peer factors should work relatively well across gender and ethnic groups,” he concludes.

Influence of Peers on Young Adults’ Substance Abuse
Another NIDA-funded study took a slightly different path, looking at peer influence on young adults. As part of a long-range study led by Dr. Hyman Hops of the Oregon Research Institute in Eugene, Oregon, the researchers gathered data from 294 participants ages 19 to 25. Each participant brought one same-sex and one opposite-sex peer into the study; those who were married brought their marital partner as their opposite-sex peer. Data gathered annually for 3 years included the quality of these relationships, the extent of any substance abuse, and the problems associated with drug use.

At the beginning of the study, 30 percent of the 294 participants had smoked cigarettes, 29 percent had smoked marijuana in the previous month, 10 percent had used other illicit drugs, and 41 percent reported problems associated with drug use in the previous 12 months. Thirty-nine percent had not used any drugs in the period specified. Men who smoked marijuana did so, on average, more often than female marijuana smokers did–an average of 5.5 times per month versus women’s average of 2.7 times a month. “Other differences between genders were not significant,” says Dr. Judy Andrews, lead author of the Oregon team. “Correlations between various substances were moderate.”

Quality of Female Peer Relationship Impacts Young Adult Marijuana Use

Each participant brought one same-sex and one opposite-sex peer into this study; participants who were married brought their spouse as their opposite-sex peer. The quality of the relationship with a female peer was a factor in young adults’ marijuana use; with young adults’ use of other substances, however, the quality of the peer relationship was not a factor.

Use of drugs by male peers positively influenced subsequent use by both men and women. “I expected females, in general, to be more influenced by males than by females,” Dr. Andrews says, “and we found that to be true only in cases where the user reported problems associated with drug use. For example, friends of both genders also influenced both males’ and females’ subsequent cigarette smoking.”

Another surprise emerged in the effect of good versus bad peer relationships. In general, the quality of the relationship with the friend did not matter when it came to substance use. “We expected that peer influence would be mediated by the quality of that relationship,” explains Dr. Andrews. “If you don’t like somebody, why would you emulate him or her? But we found this effect only with marijuana use when the peer was female. Good female friends influenced the marijuana use of both males and females. But if the good friend was male, he did not influence the marijuana use of either his male or female friend.”

Again, the overall message is clear: Young adults are influenced by their friends. “It’s an important finding,” observes Dr. Andrews. “Interventions with substance-abusing young adults should not only be with individuals, but with their peers as well.”

“We are continuing to see family and peer effects into early adulthood,” says Dr. Kathleen Etz of NIDA’s Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research. “People assume that families become less important as kids move out of the house, and this does not appear to be the case.

“Many of our interventions target adolescents and very few target young adults. Given that in the Oregon Research Institute study marijuana use was initiated after high school, it’s clear that we have to look more carefully at interventions for young adulthood.”


Sources:Andrews, J.A.; Tildesley, E.; Hops, H.; and Li, F. The influence of peers on young adult substance use.
Health Psychology 21(4):349-357, 2002.Guo, J.; Hill, K.G.; et al. A developmental analysis of sociodemographic, family,
and peer effects on adolescent illicit drug initiation. Journal of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 41(7):838-845, 2002.
Volume 18, Number 2 (August 2003)

A revised version of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program is showing effective results in preliminary studies.
About 15,500 seventh graders in Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark, New Orleans, and St. Louis took part in early trials conducted by researchers at the Institute for Health and Social Policy at the University of Akron.The researchers found that the students given the new curriculum were more likely to refuse drugs and had fewer misconceptions about how many of their peers use drugs, compared to students in a control group.

“It shows us that the program is doing what it intended to do, and in a very significant way,” said Zili Sloboda, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health and Social Policy and leader of the study.The findings could mean that the anti-drug program, which is most frequently taught to fifth-graders, could be administered in elementary through high school. “These kids are prepared now. Now we’ve got to reinforce that when they enter the ninth grade,” said Sloboda.

The researchers will continue to follow the students through their junior year in high school.The original DARE curriculum, which was implemented in 80 percent of school districts, has been criticized over the last few years for being ineffective or not sufficiently tested. A study last August supported those beliefs. The revised DARE curriculum, which will involve teachers rather than just police officers, includes more lifelike situations and helps students confront peer pressure more effectively. The study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Souce:Reported in Join Together Online 11.1.2002

A government report on America’s children shows that violent crime, smoking, and heavy drinking among U.S. teenagers are all on the decline, Reuters reported July 18.
However, more children are overweight than ever, the report found. “Most people, about two-thirds, believe that crime is going up among America’s children,” said Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “The picture painted by this report, based on actual data, paints the opposite picture. “According to the report released by the National Institutes of Health, the Census Bureau, and other agencies, victims reported 413,000 juvenile crimes in 2002, which translates into 17 violent crimes per 1,000 juveniles aged 12 to 17.”This is a 67-percent drop from the 1993 high, and the lowest rate recorded since the national victimization survey began in 1973,” the report stated.The report also found that fewer children are being killed by guns. Last year, firearms were involved in 19 percent of deaths among 15- to 19-year-olds.Exposure to secondhand smoke also fell, the report said, and fewer teens smoked. As recently as 1994, 88 percent of children ages 4 to 11 were exposed to secondhand smoke. The latest report found that rate had dropped to 64 percent. Daily smoking by youth dropped to the lowest rate since 1975, and heavy drinking among teens also declined.source:Reported in Join Together Online. 7.21.2003

Two 11-year-olds in every classroom are using drugs, according to official figures which show a rise’ in cocaine use among school leavers. Amid controversy about David Blunkett’s drugs strategy, data published by the Government’s statistical service showed that six per cent of 11-year-olds used drugs during 2001. The figure rose to 39 per cent among 15-year-olds, while a fifth of 11- to 15-year-olds in England used drugs in 2001 Cannabis was the most frequent drug used, with 13 per cent of 11- to 15-year-olds smoking.
Peter Walker, adviser on drugs to the National Association of Head teachers, said, You show me a head teacher that says they haven’t got a drug problem and I will show you a liar. I mean infant schools, primary schools and secondary schools.
Source: Daily Telegraph, Womack, July 2002

In an experiment to test the availability of cigarettes online, four adolescents were able to buy tens of thousands of cigarettes online from dozens of websites, the Durham Herald-Sun reported Sept. 9. The four children, ages 11 to 15, were taking part in a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study when they used credit cards and money orders to try to buy cigarettes from 55 Internet vendors. Over a four-month period in 2001, they succeeded 94 percent of the time using credit cards and 90 percent of the time using money orders. Just one package was marked as containing tobacco products, and only one required an adult signature for delivery. A number of vendors sent free cigarettes and promotional materials to the children.

“Although it is against the law for stores to sell cigarettes to minors in every state in America, there is currently no federal law that bans Internet and mail-order cigarette sales to minors,” lead study author Kurt Ribisl said. “Congress has been considering legislation to ban cigarette sales to minors for more than four years. This study clearly shows that Internet cigarette vendors are not adequately verifying the age of their customers and that federal action is urgently needed.” In the wake of the report, Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) introduced legislation to regulate Internet cigarette sales and collect excise takes on such sales.

There are now at least 353 online cigarette retailers, and their sales could top $5 billion by the end of 2005, Ribisl said. Most are located in low-tax states like Virginia, North Carolina. One of the biggest online retailers is New York‘s Seneca Indian tribe, which sells cigarettes tax-free from its reservation.

New data indicates that youth in Washington are taking the advice offered in the anti-tobacco ads being run by the Washington State Department of Health. According to the latest report from Sedgwick Rd., the Seattle advertising agency that created the ads, 80 percent of Washington youth had seen the anti-smoking advertisements. Furthermore, 94 percent of those who had seen the ads said they gave them good reasons not to smoke.

“The effectiveness of our advertising efforts lies in the extensive investigation we did with Washington state youth about what catches their attention most,” said Terry Reid, manager of the state Department of Health Tobacco Prevention and Control Program. “Our ads speak directly to youth who are at risk for smoking, with messages specifically designed to get their attention and give them the hard facts.”
The ads are part of the state’s comprehensive Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, which began in July 2000. The campaign also includes radio, print, and Web-based ads, community outreach, support services, and school-based education programs. Since the start of the state wide campaign, the number of Washington 10th-graders who smoke has dropped by 40 percent. “We’re creating real and lasting change in Washington,” said Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. “Still, we have more work to do; about 55 kids start smoking every day in our state. Our new ad campaign will help us reach more youth so we can convince them to quit smoking or never start.”

Source:    JTO Online May 2004

A study of alcohol-company websites finds a high number of visits from underage youth, attracted to such features as video games, music, e-mail gadgets, and icons, Researchers at the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University estimate that nearly 700,000 minors visited alcohol-company websites from July through December. “These alcohol websites are a virtual cyber-playground with no adult supervision,” said Jim O’Hara, director of the center. “If a liquor store were this ineffective in policing underage visits, the community would be up in arms.”

Frank Coleman of the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. dismissed the study, calling it a publicity stunt to raise funds. He said the Federal Trade Commission has “reviewed our ads and said they were directed to adults, that our Web content is directed to adults, and that 99.9 percent of them had age verification in place, in addition to having responsible-drinking messages throughout.”

But O’Hara said the study monitored actual Internet usage through the audience-measuring service comScore Media Matrix. It found that 13 percent of all visitors to 55 alcohol company websites were minors. Bacardi’s site had 59 percent of underage visitors, while Anheuser-Bush’s Budweiser and BudLight sites received more than 90,000 underage visits during the six-month study period. O’Hara added that parental controls on computers were not sufficient to block entry to the sites. Furthermore, the age-verification features on the websites were unable to truly verify the visitor’s age. O’Hara said the websites violate the industry’s marketing advertising codes by offering youth-oriented activities, such as downloadable music and video games. “There are a lot of features that appear to be in conflict with the industry’s own marketing and advertising codes, where they shouldn’t be using toys and games,” O’Hara said.

Are Quebec teens going to pot? New research suggests they are more likely than teenagers anywhere else in Canada to smoke marijuana and then brush off concerns relating to its use. The Health Canada study made public last month also reported nearly half of Quebec teens – 45% of 12 to 19-year-olds – have used marijuana on more than one occasion. And their first exposure is often by age 13.  Barbara Victor, a Montreal social worker who, like others, found the results alarming, and said, “For me the numbers certainly made connections between early drug use, abuse, gambling and other problems” the Gazette adds.  Victor is the director of school services for Jewish Family Services, which organizes drug prevention programs in more than 100 Quebec schools. She said the statistics tell her Quebec families, schools and other community organizations must do a better job of giving young people skills – other than smoking pot – to cope with life’s stresses.

The national study found only 34 percent of Canadian teens, age 12 to 19, have smoked marijuana more than once and were more likely to have concerns about it than Quebec teens.  “In Quebec”, Victor said, “smoking pot is no longer counterculture but almost the norm. Many of today’s parents have smoked marijuana in the past and many continue the habit.” As a result, Victor said, teenagers say and, understandably so, ‘You do it Dad. Why can’t I?’ But when a teenager smokes pot, he or she brings his 13-year-old judgment to the situation and it becomes all the more dangerous.” The Gazette notes, The 74-page report on Canadian youth and marijuana was put together for Health Canada by Ottawa-based GPC Research. The report is now making its way into the hands of professionals working in the field of drug prevention. The study was commissioned as part of the federal government’s plan to develop a comprehensive health promotion and drug prevention strategy to discourage Canadians, teens specifically, from smoking marijuana. There are about 3 million teens in Canada.”

The federal government’s $180 million youth anti-drug media campaign may be paying dividends in terms of reduced youth marijuana use, according to data released from the 2003 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey. Tobacco, Ecstasy and LSD use also showed substantial declines. But the report’s lead researcher says that while there is plenty of good news this year, the survey has some troubling warning signs about future drug-use trends. The 2003 survey found that current use of marijuana fell 11% over the past two year, matching a goal set by the Bush administration, which has focused the bulk of its anti-drug advertising on marijuana use. “Fewer teens are using drugs because of the deliberate and serious messages they have received about the dangers of drugs from their parents, leaders, and prevention efforts like our National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaignsaid John Walters, director of the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy.

University of Michigan researcher Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator for the survey, said it is “quite possible” that the media campaign “has had its intended effect.” Johnson told Join Together that he drew this conclusion because the proportion of kids who say they have been exposed to anti-drug ads and that view marijuana negatively has risen as pot use has declined. “You put these facts together and it looks like [the campaign] is having an effect,” he said. “It’s a logical deduction on our part; it hasn’t been proven empirically.” Overall, current use of any illicit drug fell 11%  between 2001 and 2003, from 19.4% of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-graders to
17.3 %. However, one-third of students surveyed currently use alcohol, down 7 percent from 2001 but unchanged from 2002. Current cigarette use also declined, from 20.3% in 2001 to 16.6% in 2003.

The data, while positive overall, were not universally heartening. Use of powerful prescription drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin increased slightly, for instance, and use of cocaine, certain club drugs, and narcotics other than heroin was virtually unchanged over the two-year period studied. Moreover, said Johnston, drug-use rates don’t seem to be improving among younger teens, which could portend problems for the future. “I’m worried about getting another generation of kids who have not heard about drugs, because when you have things like the war in Iraq and 9/11, you don’t hear much about drugs,” he said. Johnston said just such a spike in drug use occurred after the first Gulf War, when national attention was diverted away from youth drug use. “The 8th-graders have been harbingers of change observed later in the upper grades, so the fact that they are no longer showing declines in their use of a number of drugs could mean that the declines now being observed in the upper grades also will come to an end soon,” Johnston said in a press statement on the report.

Good News on Illicit Drugs, But Attention to Alcohol Needed

David Rosenbloom, director of Join Together, called the data on illicit drug use and tobacco “very good news.” But he said that the prevalence of alcohol as the nation’s top drug of abuse among adolescents continues to be a cause for concern. “It’s distressing that progress against alcohol use — the most frequently consumed illicit substance for teenagers — has stalled over the past year,” said Rosenbloom. “There are strong governmental and voluntary activities directed against illicit drug and tobacco use by children. But there is virtually no concerted action against teen drinking. We need a strong nationwide effort, consistent with the 2003 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recommendationsthat involves parents, teens, governments, and private organizations in concerted action to prevent and reduce drinking by young people.”

While last year’s survey showed a decrease in overall alcohol use and heavy drinking occasions in all three grades, the researchers reported no statistically significant declines on these measures in the 2003 survey. MTF’s Johnston said that a media campaign on youth alcohol use similar to that currently targeting marijuana use would be valuable, noting that the anti-drunk driving campaigns waged by MADD and the Ad Council during the 1980s had a big impact on youth drinking and attitudes regarding alcohol use. “There have been private-sector campaigns, but it would be ideal to see government money go into it, not just for alcohol but tobacco use, too,” Johnston said. He added that such a campaign would need to be carefully crafted and vetted, noting that the initial ads in the ONDCP anti-drug campaign “weren’t very effective because they didn’t talk about the dangers of drugs and had to put these ONDCP tags on all the ads,” which he said was a signal for kids to tune the messages out.

Tom Riley, a spokesperson for ONDCP, acknowledged that in the wake of the NAS report “a lot of people in the prevention community have been asking us about teen alcohol use, which is a huge problem.” But while he said the current anti-drug media campaign could have a “spillover effect” on youth alcohol use, he said that Congress has limited the campaign to illicit-drug use.

Reasons for Declines Vary

While ONDCP credited the media campaign for the decrease in marijuana use, explanations for the decline in other drug use varied. Both lifetime and current use of ecstasy use fell sharply (to 5.5% and 1.1 % of those surveyed, respectively), for example, and Johnston speculated that increased media coverage of the drug had helped raise perceptions about the drug’s dangers among youth. LSD use continued a long pattern of decline, possibly because of decreased availability due to interdiction efforts.

The long-term trend — which show a dramatic decrease in drug use over the past 30 years, despite a spike upwards in the early 1990s – is significant. ONDCP’s Tom Riley called for continued commitment to maintain the positive advances. “It’s not just do it once and it’s done,” he said. “We need brand-new educational efforts for each new cadre of kids.”

Smokers under the age of 40 are five times more likely to have a heart attack than non-smokers, with women at an even higher risk, new research has shown. A study of almost 23,000 non-fatal heart attacks, based on data from the WHO, found that four-fifths of victims aged 35-39 were smokers.The research published in the journal Tobacco Control puts paid to the notion that only older smokers are at risk from cardiac disease. Experts from the National Public Health Institute in Helskinki studied a group of 132,000 men and women between the ages of 35 and 64 from 21 countries around the world.Of the 23,000 people who had suffered non-fatal heart attacks between 1985 and 1994, 800 were under the age of 40.Of these, 80% were smokers.

Tim Bowker, associate medical director of the British Heart Foundation,said: “This should be a profound warning to younger smokers that they are putting themselves at risk of having a heart attack before they even reach middle age.”

Source:The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Metro, 24/8/04

By Jonathan Gneiser
Central Wisconsin Sunday, Sun, Jan 4, 2004

Central Wisconsin is not exempt from a nationwide trend: youths overdosing on nonprescription cough and cold medicines. Dozens of overdoses in the past two years, including at least five deaths in the United States in which the abuse of over-the-counter medicines was a factor, show how medicines such as Coricidin and Robitussin are becoming recreational drugs for kids as young as 12, according to police and doctors.

Jennie Echola, 20, of Marshfield said an acquaintance introduced her to Coricidin HBP Cough & Cold tablets to get a buzz that provided a couple hours of euphoria and hallucinations.

Although she’s stayed away from illegal drugs, Echola said she thought the cold pills were harmless, because they can be bought legally off the shelf. “I was a walking ‘anti-drug,’” she said. Echola got high on the cold medicine five or six times while she was 19 years old, each time becoming more concerned that she was becoming addicted, she said.

“It’s kind of scary when that’s all you think about,” she said. “It’s like smoking – when you’re under stress you want to smoke more. It basically became an antidepressant for me. “
After becoming upset and having too much to drink at a friend’s birthday party, Echola said she accidentally took Sudafed with Tylenol instead of Coricidin and landed in the hospital for several months. “My liver quit working,” she said.

That incident was an awakening for Echola, who said any sign or smell of the cold pills now makes her gag. “Just thinking about it makes me nauseous,” Echola said. But she’s concerned others, including her 14-year-old brother, could be overdosing on cold medicine. “It seems to be a thing to do with kids his age,” she said. The directions on Coricidin say adults and children 12 years or older can take one tablet every six hours, not to exceed four tablets in 24 hours. The product is not for children under 12.

Recommended doses for over-the-counter drugs should not be ignored, said Joseph Gerwood, a psychologist and certified alcohol and drug counselor for Ministry Behavioral Health of St. Michael’s Hospital in Stevens Point. “The reason is to prevent death and other side effects,” he said. “When you go overboard, you’re going to pay the consequences. You can blow out your liver, heart or have a stroke.” Overdosing with certain cold medicines can stimulate the central nervous system to create hallucinations, anxiety, restlessness and agitation, or depress the system and cause someone to slip into a coma, said Sheila Weix, manager of Alcohol and Drug Recovery Service at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield.

“Anytime that you’re using toxic doses of anything in your body, it’s going to have negative effects,” she said. Gerwood said he’s also met with clients who’ve added alcohol or marijuana to the mix. “The problem is when you start mixing this with other drugs, you’re not only playing with fire – you’re in fire,” he said. Riverview Hospital’s medical staff held an inservice on the trend of overdosing on cold medicines about six months ago, said Dave Mueller, director of community relations for Riverview Hospital in Wisconsin Rapids. “We’ve had isolated cases of it over the last year,” he said.

Cases tend to come in streaks whenever there’s a greater awareness of a particular product that can be used to get high, Weix said. Adults also sometimes resort to over-the-counter medications when they can’t get preferred drugs.“There’s always kind of a fringe group that tries these things,” she said. Although Marshfield Police Chief Joe Stroik has only seen a couple of cases reported within the past year, he said it’s an emerging problem. Stroik said he’s especially concerned that teenagers are treating the cold pills like candy.

“With the younger kids, it’s almost like candy Skittles,” Stroik said. “That’s dangerous.”
Residents should clean out their medicine cabinet often to keep tabs on what should be there, Stroik said. Although some retailers won’t sell the medicine to children under 18, Echola said she knows kids have shoplifted boxes of it.

“It shouldn’t be so accessible,” said Echola, who’d like to see the medicine require a prescription, or at least moved behind the counter. After two teenage girls and two 20-year-old men in Merrill overdosed on medicines containing dextromethorphan, or DXM, this year, some drugstores in the city began to stow such remedies behind their counters. At the Aurora Pharmacy, customers aren’t allowed to buy several boxes of Coricidin tablets at once and must request them. Pharmacist Jim Becker said he wants the drug “where we can keep an eye on it.” Although drug manufacturers say they sympathize with concerns about drug abuse, they’re resisting efforts to restrict consumers’ access to Coricidin, Robitussin and other remedies containing dextromethorphan.

“The vast majority of people take them responsibly,” said Fran Sullivan, spokesman for Wyeth Consumer Healthcare in Madison, N.J., which makes Robitussin products. “As a medicine, it works hands-down, so we want people to be able to use it if they need it. “Wyeth increased the size of the packaging for its anti-cough gel-tabs so that it is difficult to stash in a backpack or pocket, Sullivan said. “We’ve noticed that the abuse comes and goes in waves,” he said. “It gets really popular in a small area for a short period of time and then it dies out. Teens end up in the emergency room, it makes the local newspaper, and the area goes on alert.”

Schering-Plough, which makes Coricidin, is working with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America to create an educational Web site on dextromethorphan, company spokeswoman Mary-Fran Faraji said. Company representatives also are meeting with pharmacists, parents, schools and retailers to discuss ways to prevent drug abuse.Gannett News Service contributed to this story.

Created and sponsored by the Uhlich Children’s Advantage Network (UCAN) located in Chicago, Illinois, the report card is an annual measure of adult progress on issues affecting teens, as graded by teens themselves. Conducted in January and February of 2004, the representative sampling consists of 1,000 teenagers, ages 12 to 19. Teens received the questions in the form of a mail survey, with the results weighted to reflect regional, ethnic and gender distribution across the United States. The research division of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), in Washington, D.C., provided long-term trending analysis of the grades received by the adults.

CWLA’s analysis revealed:

• Adults can take pride that they received consistently high “B’” range grades over the six-year period in “providing a quality education for young people,” even though students in urban focus groups often felt that resources at many city schools did not match those of the suburbs.
• Each year between 1999 and 2004, over 50% of young people consistently gave above average grades (A’s and B’s) to adults in the following categories: “Providing a Quality Education for Young People,” “Creating Job Opportunities for the Future,” and “Spending Quality Time with their Families.”
• Each year between 1999 and 2004, over 35% of young people consistently gave failing grades (D’s and F’s) to adults in the following categories: “Really Listening to – and Understanding Young People,” “Getting Rid of Gangs,” “Stopping Young People from Smoking,” “Stopping Young People from Using Drugs,” and “Stopping Young People from Drinking.”
• For the sixth straight year, teens gave the lowest grade to adults in stopping young people from drinking.
• Teens have given adults a wide range of grades on “running the government” over the six-year period, including a “D+” in 1999, a “B-” in 2002, and “C’s” in 2003 and 2004.

Use of highly potent types of pot appears to be sending more youths to the ER and into rehab programs.

The high-potency marijuana now widely available in cities and some small towns is causing an increasing number of teenagers – and some preteens – to land in drug treatment centres or emergency rooms, recent government statistics suggest. The numbers are not conclusive, experts say, but have renewed scientific interest in and debate about the risks of marijuana use.  “The stereotypes of marijuana smoking are way out of date,” said Michael Dennis, a research psychologist in Bloomington, Ill. “The kids we see are not only smoking stronger stuff at a younger age but their pattern of use might be three to six blunts – the equivalent of three or four joints each – just for themselves, in a day. That’s got nothing to do with what Mom or Dad did in high school. It might as well be a different drug.”

Though overall marijuana use in minors has declined slightly since the mid-1990s, recently released statistics from hospitals and treatment centres suggest that the drug is causing many young users serious problems. Late last year, federal health officials reported that the number of marijuana-related emergency room visits for children age 12 to 17 had more than tripled since 1994, to 7,535 in 2001, the latest year for which figures were available. The most common reason for the visit was an “unexpected reaction” to the drug. “Overdose” was cited in 10% of these cases, “chronic effects” in 6% and “accident or injury” in 4%. The latest U.S. Health and Human Services Department data show that marijuana or hashish use is, by far, the most common reason why children age 12 to 17 were placed in licensed public or private treatment centers, accounting for more than 60% of reported cases in 2001.

In an analysis published last week, researchers at Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse calculated that the treatment rate for cannabis dependence or habitual use in youngsters had jumped 142% in the last decade. It is too early to tell whether these statistics truly represent a surge in habitual use, experts said. Admission figures could be skewed by changes in the way some states collect data and report it to the federal government. Forced drug treatment is also a way many teens avoid juvenile detention after a drug arrest. Most children who smoke marijuana are occasional users, experts said. And there is little evidence that a heavy marijuana user who quits the habit will experience the kind of physical withdrawal symptoms reported by heroin or cocaine users. Because marijuana seized by federal authorities today is about twice as potent as it was in the 1980s, health officials are taking the drug more seriously.

Although some scientists doubt that marijuana induces real physical dependence, many top drug researchers have concluded otherwise. “There is no question marijuana can be addictive; that argument is over,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “The most important thing right now is to understand the vulnerability of young, developing brains to these increased concentrations of cannabis.”  More than 50 government-funded studies of cannabis are underway, and Volkow has pledged agency funds to investigate areas related to regular marijuana use. These include:

• Effect of cannabis on the young brain. Doctors have little understanding of how regular marijuana use alters the biological development of the brain. Clinicians who treat heavy users say that the earlier a person starts taking the drug, the more quickly a habit takes hold. “The risk of becoming addicted is far higher for a child in junior high than it is for someone who tries it in high school,” said Dennis, a researcher at Chestnut Health Systems, a large behavioral care provider in Bloomington. Regular use can also exacerbate symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and trigger latent mental disorders, some doctors believe.
• Medications to help break the habit. In recent years, doctors have had some success treating narcotic addiction with drugs such as buprenorphine, which is used for heroin dependence. They have done very little testing of drugs to ease marijuana craving.
• Genetic susceptibility. In a recent study of 198 young people, doctors in New Zealand found that those who reported enjoying their first-time use of marijuana were more likely to develop a habit later on. The researchers said their findings suggested that some people might be genetically vulnerable to addiction. Volkow is encouraging researchers to isolate genes that may contribute to the vulnerability.