American high school students say that around 17 percent of their peers use drugs, alcohol or cigarettes during the school day—a total of around 2.8 million teens—according to the 17th annual back-to-school teen drug-use survey from the National Center on Addiction and Substances Abuse at Columbia University (CASAColumbia). Eighty-six percent of the high-schoolers surveyed confirm that this happens. And almost half of them know where to buy drugs at school. As for what’s on offer, 91 percent of kids surveyed report cannabis for sale on school property, and 24 percent prescription drugs. Private high schools are also rapidly catching up with public ones: 54 percent of such students now say drugs are rampant at their schools—that’s shot up from just 36 percent in 2011.
Significantly, three-quarters of the 12 to 17-year-olds surveyed said coming across photos of other kids drinking or smoking on Facebook and other social networking sites encourages them to want to get high—and almost half the teens say they see photos of kids passed out or using drugs. Compared to kids who haven’t seen pictures like these, kids who have are four times likelier to have smoked cannabis, more than three times likelier to have drunk booze, and almost three times as likely to be cigarette smokers.
The lesson for parents; we need to show our kids that we clearly disapprove of the drug-use and drinking. You would be surprised at the number of parents who tell me they thought because their kids were drinking at home it was okay for them to drink–because it was under their own roof.
The reality is, parents need to start talking to their kids at an early age – at least by the time they’re seven or eight years old about drug and alcohol use. We need to teach our kids to say no. If you wait to have that talk when they are teens, you most likely have waited too long. Extensive studies now tell us that teenage brains are more vulnerable than adults’ to the effects of drugs and alcohol.
Cary Quashen is a high-risk teen counselor, a certified addiction specialist, and is the president and founder of Action Family Counseling Parent & Teen Support Group Programs and Action Family Counseling Drug and Alcohol Treatment Programs. Action Parent & Teen Support Group Meetings, meet every Thursday at 7 p.m. at Canyon High School. For more information call 800-367-8336.