The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services has found that nearly half of the states high school students report using alcohol on a regular basis.

According to a Sept. 17 article by Robert Levey of the website Seacoast Online, this news about the prevalence of teen substance abuse shocked many and compelled some to act:

With studies showing New Hampshire youth possess some of the highest rates of alcohol and drug use nationally, New Heights, the Community Diversion Program, and Portsmouth High School Student Assistant Program have formed the Portsmouth Reflections Program.

Noting the goal of the Portsmouth Reflections Program, or PRP, is to improve long-term outcomes for teens age 14 to 18, including those with substance abuse issues and other high-risk behaviors, Marci Albert, student assistance counselor at PHS, said the program is comprehensive by design.

As noted by the (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), To have the most positive impact on adolescent health, government agencies, community organizations, schools and other community members must work together, she said.

Labels: prevention, teenage_drinking, teen_drug_use

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Throughout the world, high school and college students will spend a few moments today learning about the potentially devastating effects of peer pressure, hazing and alcohol poisoning.

According to a Sept. 22 article by Nancy Churnin of The Dallas Morning News, the global awareness event, which is known as "Gordie Day," was created by Leslie and Michael Lanahan to memorialize their son, Lynn Gordon Bailey Jr.:

Gordie was 18 and a freshman at the University of Colorado five years ago when he drank whiskey and wine as part of a fraternity hazing, was left to "sleep it off" and died of alcohol poisoning.

The Lanahans could have withdrawn into their pain. Instead, they turned it into the Gordie Foundation, which establishes Circle of Trust chapters to address the dangers of peer pressure and hazing, teach the signs of alcohol poisoning and encourage young people to pledge to call for help as needed.

The event is offered in conjunction with National Hazing Prevention Week (sponsored by HazingPrevention.org) in recognition that this is a likely week for hazing.

Labels: alcohol_abuse, awareness, hazing, alcohol poisoning

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Many experts have identified parental involvement as the key to helping kids stay away from alcohol and other drugs. But the truth of the matter is that parental involvement wont do any good if the child is unresponsive or detached -- thus, the essential component is cooperation between parents and teens.

This topic was addressed in a Sept. 21 article by Alice Englin, the coalition director for the Freeborn County (Minn.) Partners In Prevention:

An important step to making rules and consequences effective is to involve your kids in establishing them. Talk with your kids about your familys beliefs and values, seek their input and commit to making the topic an ongoing conversation.

Involving them reinforces that you are interested in what they have to say and, in turn, will help them be more open to the important messages you have to communicate.

Parents cant be everywhere, but you are the biggest influence in their life. Thats why its important to keep the lines of communication open, be firm about where you stand, and educate them so that they are equipped to make healthy choices when it comes to alcohol and other drugs.

Labels: prevention, parental_involvement, communication

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People whose lives have been touched by addiction joined hands near Lewiston, Idaho, Sept. 18 to span the Interstate Bridge in a show of hope and solidarity.

Stephanie Smith of Idaho's KLEW-TV reported on the "Hands Across the Bridge" ceremony, a community event designed to celebrate September's designation as National Drug and Alcohol Addiction Recovery Month:

"What we are trying to do is a prevention event to show families that there is fun for families without drugs or alcohol and to also show the number of lives that are touched by addictions, whether it is alcohol or other substances and also to show others that there is hope in recovery," said Sherry Greenup, Asotin County Substance Abuse/Mental Health Coordinator.

There were speeches by those touched by alcohol and other drugs. Greenup says addiction is a huge problem in the Valley.

It's a very inter-generational, especially alcohol. It's been seen as a right of passage and at least my kids aren't doing drugs kind of thing, but I think that most people do know somebody, a lot of people are really good at hiding it, whether it is a neighbor or family friend or a spouse or sibling. 1 in 5, at least, they say are touched by alcoholism.

Labels: recovery. community, celebration

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Why do some teenagers start smoking? Why do some become heavy smokers? Researchers from the University of Montreal set out to find the answers to these questions.

• Dr. Jennifer OLoughlin and her colleagues studied 877 students for five years starting when they were 13-years old.
  
• None of the children were smoking at the beginning of the study.
  
• By the time participants were 18 years old, 48 percent were smoking.
  
• Among the smoking group, 21 percent of the teens were smoking every day.

Dr. OLoughlin's research team drew the following conclusions from their research:

• Children from single-family homes and those who perform poorly in school are at increased risk of becoming smokers.
  
• Having parents, teachers, siblings, and/or friends who smoke increase their risk by two or three times.
  
• Teenagers who felt stressed, and had trouble controlling their impulses were also more likely to smoke.

Some factors that did not increase the risk for teen smoking included gender, parents education, depression, worries about weight, excessive risk taking, involvement in sports, and television watching.

The study appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Labels: tobacco use, smoking, teenagers, research

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In a Sept. 16 commentary on the CNN website, former Middlebury College President John M. McCardell Jr. advocates abolishing the U.S. minimum drinking age of 21 and replacing it with a system that educates teenagers and young adults about the proper use of alcohol, and and then licenses them to drink.

McCardell is the founder and president of Choose Responsibility, a nonprofit organization that describes its purpose as "to stimulate informed and dispassionate public discussion about the presence of alcohol in American culture and to consider policies that will effectively empower young adults age 18 to 20 to make mature decisions about the place of alcohol in their own lives."

The following are excerpts from McCardell's CNN commentary:

A study of binge drinking published in the Journal of the American Medical Association announced that "despite efforts at prevention, the prevalence of binge drinking among college students is continuing to rise, and so are the harms associated with it." ...

Yet, in the face of mounting evidence that those young adults age 18 to 20 toward whom the drinking age law has been directed are routinely -- indeed in life- and health-threatening ways -- violating it, there remains a belief in the land that a minimum drinking age of 21 has been a "success." ...

The principal problem of 2009 is not drunken driving. The principal problem of 2009 is clandestine binge drinking. ...

Alcohol is a reality in the lives of young adults. We can either try to change the reality -- which has been our principal focus since 1984, by imposing Prohibition on young adults 18 to 20 -- or we can create the safest possible environment for the reality.

A drinking age minimum of 21 has not changed the reality. It's time to try something different.

McCardell's thoughts about minimum-age drinking laws, binge drinking by college students, and other matters related to underage drinking first garnered national interest in 2004, when the New York Times published his op-ed piece, "What Your College President Didn't Tell You." McCardell completed "The Effects of the 21 Year-Old Drinking Age: A White Paper" in 2006 and founded Choose Responsibility the following year.

Labels: underage drinking, binge drinking, drinking_age

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The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has issued a 304-page report on drug and alcohol use in 2008. There were few surprises or changes in the rates of use from other years.

• The use of illegal drugs among teenagers has remained about the same since 2005.
  
• Among children ages 12 to 17 years old, 11.6 percent used such drugs in 2002, compared to 9.3 percent in 2008.
  
• Use of prescription drugs for non-medical reasons dropped from 4 percent in 2002 to 2.9 percent in 2008.

However, among people above the age of 12 years, the non-medical use of painkillers is an area of concern, according to the report. About 2.18 million people tried these substances for the first time in 2008.

When it comes to other forms of illicit drug use, marijuana and inhalants remain the most popular choices, SAMHSA reports:

• People under 18 years old tend to use marijuana and inhalants more than other illegal drugs.
  
• The average age of trying these two drugs is about sixteen years old.
  
• The average ages for trying heroin and tranquilizers are 23 and 24 years old, respectively.
  
• People start experimenting with Ecstasy, stimulants, cocaine, and LSD around ages 19 to 20.

Problem drinking among college students remains a concern:

• Among full-time students ages 18 to 22 years old, 61 percent were drinkers, 41 percent were binge drinkers, and 16 percent were heavy drinkers.
  
• The rates for those in that age group not enrolled in school were 54 percent drinkers, 38 percent binge drinkers, and 13 percent heavy drinkers.
  
• Sixty-eight percent of college graduates drink compared to 37 percent of non-graduates. However, non-graduates had higher rates of binge and heavy drinking.

Labels: drug use, marijuana, inhalants, prescription drugs, underage drinking, binge drinking, research

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The Partnership for a Drug-Free America has announced the launch of a new website aimed at helping Hispanic families. Habla Con Tus Hijos is a Spanish-language web resource filled with tips and guidance on how parents can best start, and continue, honest conversations with their children about drug use.

The following details were included in a press release to announce the establishment of the new website:

"Habla Con Tus Hijos" is the new Spanish-language counterpart to the Partnerships ongoing parent movement, Time to Talk".

Both Habla Con Tus Hijos and Time to Talk are grounded in the Partnerships national research that consistently shows kids who learn a lot about the risks of drugs from their parents are up to 50 percent less likely to use drugs than those who do not get that crucial message at home.

Parents and caregivers will be able to download Spanish-language tools and resources that will guide them in their conversations with their kids. The web site is culturally relevant, and most of the resources are available free of charge.

Visit www.hablacontushijos.org for more information.

Labels: parents, communication, hispanic, internet

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Vashon Island, off the coast of Washington State, has been awarded a grant aimed at addressing teen drug use. According to an article in the Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber, the grant money will benefit the newly formed Vashon Health Community Network:

The grant, $115,000 the first year and up to $125,000 for each of the next nine years, will enable the network to hire a coordinator.

In the first year of funding, the network also plans to strengthen its community mobilization skills, strengthen the coalition and begin addressing youth substance abuse by undertaking an awareness campaign about the harmful effects of drugs, alcohol and tobacco on youth, according to the networks 196-page application for the grant.

The grant was awarded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and subsequent funding may be provided, depending upon the progress thats made during the first year.

Labels: prevention, grant

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A four-year study conducted with support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has found that specialized, community-based prevention programs work to significantly reduce instances of drug and alcohol abuse among teens.

The study, called the Community Youth Development Study, was conducted in 24 communities across the country and included over 4,000 young people. A Sept. 7 release from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided the following details:

• Twelve communities were randomly assigned to undergo CTC training and implementation, and 12 served as the control communities that did not implement CTC.
  
• The coalitions chose and implemented from two to five evidence-based prevention programs tailored to their risk factors, from a menu of tested and effective prevention strategies.
  
• The strategies focused on a variety of topics depending on community need, including alcohol and drugs, violence prevention, reducing family conflict, life skills training, HIV/AIDS prevention, dating safety, tobacco, and anger management.
  
• The youth were surveyed annually for four years concerning their risky behaviors to determine the impact of delivering programs through the CTC system.

"The results of this trial confirm that tools do exist that give communities the power to reduce risk for multiple problem behaviors across a community," NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow said in the NIH release. "What makes Communities That Care unique is that it enables communities to identify their own special issues so they can hand pick the right prevention programs."

Labels: prevention, community_programs

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In a Sept. 2 Salem News article, columnist Brian T. Watson provides an up-close look at one teen's descent into drug addiction -- and the effort it took for this young man to get his life on track. The subject of the article, the 19-year-old son of one of Watson's friends, is referred to by the pseudonym "John" throughout the column:

John first tried marijuana, beer, and hard liquor at age 13 while in the eighth grade. ...

As a freshman in high school, though he would have an occasional drink, John was still an open, cheerful kid with excellent grades, good study habits, and plenty of friends. He was healthy and fit, had a solid family, and no known problems. ...

By junior year he was a mess. He was smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. He drank and took all kinds of drugs constantly. Because he often stayed up half the night at friends' houses, he fell asleep in school. He feuded with his teachers and was suspended twice and arrested once. ...

John can tell you why he became a drug abuser, but it's not profound. He says being drunk or high was simply an alternative to boredom.

John began the process of overcoming his problems with drug and alcohol after enrolling in a private boarding school for troubled teens.

"John is solidly building his way back, learning, growing, and getting better at assessing and putting into perspective the infinite variety of people, attitudes, and personal choices that exist," Watson wrote.

Labels: alcohol_abuse, recovery, drug_abuse, boarding school

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Georgia will soon launch an aggressive public awareness campaign based on the successful Montana Meth Project. The $6 million campaign will take aim at methamphetamine use, which is estimated to cost Georgia about $1.3 billion a year.

John M. Willis, editor and publisher of the Calhoun Times, provided the following details in a Sept. 3 article:

[Jim] Langford said the campaign will focus on preventing meth use among the states most vulnerable population, its young people. According to the Department of Health, 51 percent of people entering treatment for meth abuse in Georgia are between the ages of 12 and 25, substantially higher than the national average.

In 2007, 32 percent of federal drug offenses in Georgia involved meth, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Langford said Northwest Georgia had some of the highest incidences of meth use in the state of Georgia.

Langford said the Georgia Meth Project is based on similar programs in Montana and Arizona, the first two states to launch Meth Project prevention campaigns. Those states saw 45 percent reductions in teen meth use in two years, he said.

Labels: awareness, meth, methamphetamine

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A study of teenagers in Georgia found that hard alcohol was the most abused substance among high school students:

• Thirty-eight percent of surveyed students told researchers that they were drinkers.
• Forty-four percent of self-identified teen drinkers had consumed Scotch, bourbon, rum, vodka or whiskey within the past month.
• The majority drank at friends houses and got the alcohol from someone who bought it for them.

Researchers used data from 2,465 students in grades nine through 12 that had been collected for the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Labels: alcohol_abuse, teens

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The average teenager sees about 200 ads for alcohol on television each year. According to a new UCLA study ads for beer, liquor and alcopops are more likely to be aired on cable television when teens are watching.

Dr. Paul Chung, a professor of pediatrics, and his research team studied more than 600,000 ads on cable television. The researchers found that more ads were shown on shows that had a higher percentage of young watchers between the ages of 12 and 20 years old.

"The study did not examine whether alcohol and advertisers are intentionally over-exposing adolescents," Dr. Chung said. "The alcohol industry has consistently denied actively targeting teenagers, and our study was not designed to test that claim. However, the ultimate effect of their advertising strategies, intentional or not, appears to be greater exposure than might be expected if adults were the targets of ads."

The UCLA study appeared in the American Journal of Public Health.

Labels: teens, advertising, television

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"Shake and bake" methamphetamine is contributing to a spike in the number of people arrested for possession of the drug.

The number of meth-related arrests had been declining for years, but a new formula is allowing users to make methamphetamine relatively easily by combining cold pills and a few chemicals in a two-liter soda bottle and then shaking it for a few minutes.

The old way to make methamphetamine required laboratory equipment and cans of flammable liquid. Many people suffered injuries during explosions at these home laboratories.

Drug users now can make methamphetamine faster, quicker and cheaper. They can even make a small batch of meth from a few cold tablets.

Law enforcement officers have expressed concern over the new "shake and bake" recipe for meth. Methamphetamine addiction often leads to disorientation, violence, poor judgment and a number of other devastating physical and psychological effects.

Labels: meth, methamphetamine, abuse

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