{"id":1195,"date":"2009-04-24T13:07:56","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T13:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2016-09-22T21:23:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T21:23:34","slug":"report-shows-parents-unaware-of-childrens-ecstasy-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2009\/04\/report-shows-parents-unaware-of-childrens-ecstasy-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Report Shows Parents Unaware of Children\u2019s Ecstasy Use"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><span>Report Shows Parents Unaware of Children\u2019s Ecstasy Use<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>While nearly 3 million teenagers in America have already tried the club drug Ecstasy, only one percent of parents believe their son or daughter is among them &#8211; and half of all parents are unclear about the effects of the so-called &#8216;love drug,&#8217; according to a national survey by the Partnership for Drug-Free America (PDFA).<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>The 2001-2002 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS) surveyed 1,219 parents across the country from December 2001 to January 2002. (Margin of error + \/ -2.8 percent. Data are nationally projectable.) This is the 14th installment of parents data fielded for the PATS study since<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>1987. Top line findings include the following:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>Spreading the word: 92 percent of all parents have heard about Ecstasy. Parents of children in grades 7 to 12 are more likely to have heard about Ecstasy (93 percent) than parents of younger children in grades 4 to 6 (89 percent).<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>Instilling the meaning: One of every two parents in America (49 percent) is unclear about Ecstasy\u2019s effects on users. Some 60 percent of all parents are unsure of what is in the drug.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>Not acknowledging the risk to their children: With 12 percent of teenagers in the country (2.8 million teens) reporting use of Ecstasy, the study released today shows that only one percent of parents believe their teen might have tried the drug. (Teen use of Ecstasy has jumped 71 percent since 1999- and is now equal to or greater than adolescent consumption of cocaine, crack, heroin, LSD and metbampheta mine.)<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>Parent &amp; teen perceptions far apart: Parents underestimate the availability of Ecstasy to teenagers, and overestimate the degree of risk teens associate with the drug. Almost three out of four parents (72 percent) believe their teen sees great risk in using Ecstasy once or twice. (Just 42 percent of teens agree.) Some 41 percent of parents think Ecstasy would be very or fairly difficult for their teen to get. (Just 26 percent of teens agree.)<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>More reminders, more talks: Exposure to anti-drug ads correlate with frequent parent-child communication about drugs. Among parents who reported seeing or hearing an anti-drug message every day or more, 55 percent talk frequently. Among parents exposed to fewer messages, 44 percent talk frequently.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>Ecstasy-specific talks: Among the drugs parents talk &#8216;a lot&#8217; about with teenagers, parents were more likely to discuss inhalants (36 percent)<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>cocaine\/crack (48 percent); marijuana (60 percent) and alcohol (70 percent) than Ecstasy (29 percent).<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>\u2018Kids who learn a lot about the risks of drugs at home are less likely to try drugs\u2019 Pasierb said. \u201cYet millions of parents sincerely don\u2019t believe that their kids are the ones experimenting with drugs like Ecstasy. It\u2019s these assumptions that enable drug use to go undetected. rf you\u2019re a parent hearing this, the question we beg you to consider is \u2018Could this be me?\u201d<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>Ecstasy&#8211;chemically known as 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA &#8211; is a synthetic, psychoactive drug with amphetamine-like and hallucinogenic properties. Taken orally in pill form, Ecstasy can be extremely dangerous, especially in high doses. Ecstasy accelerates the release of serotonin in the brain, producing an intense high, often characterized by extreme feelings of love and acceptance &#8211; \u2018the very emotions teens crave the most,\u201d Pasierb said. Ecstasy can cause dramatic increases in body temperature and can lead to muscle breakdown, as well as kidney and cardiovascular system failure, as reported in some fatalities. A growing body of research has found Ecstasy to be neurotoxic. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, MDMA can damage the neurons that use the chemical serotonin to communicate with other neurons.<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>As reported by the Partnership\u2019s research and other studies, Ecstasy use has increased significantly across the country. Partnership research indicates that older teens (16-17) are more likely to experiment with Ecstasy than are younger teens (13-15); most users are boys, but by a slim margin. Unlike methamphetamine and other drugs that are more regional in nature, Ecstasy is a drug that has been found in major cities and small towns throughout America, with noteworthy emergence in locations as diverse as Baltimore, Maryland and Billings, Montana. (See \u201cPulse Check\u201d findings.) Emergency room mentions related to Ecstasy increased nearly 13-fold from 421 in 1995 to 5,542 in 2000.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><span>Source:Partnership for a Drug-Free America,New York July 2003<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Report Shows Parents Unaware of Children\u2019s Ecstasy Use While nearly 3 million teenagers in America have already tried the club drug Ecstasy, only one percent of parents believe their son or daughter is among them &#8211; and half of all parents are unclear about the effects of the so-called &#8216;love drug,&#8217; according to a national [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,46,19,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecstasy","category-parents","category-usa","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}