Drug Use and Abuse by Teenagers

There is a bewildering array of statistics associated with knowledge of teenage drug use, although cyclical patterns to teenagers' use of drugs were identified in the last two decades of the 20th century. In 1979, for example, 54.2% of high school seniors admitted to illicit drug use, while in 1992 only 27.1% did so. In 1997, the figure was at 42.4% (Teen, 1999). On the other hand, a 1995 study published by the Columbia University medical school reported that some two-thirds of American teenagers at least experiment with drugs before finishing high school, and that about one-third use an illicit drug besides marijuana: "One survey found that 7 percent used marijuana daily, 6 percent drank alcohol daily, and 20 percent smoked cigarettes every day" (Kelber, 1995, p. 141). In late 1999, the Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education released results of a survey of more than 138,000 adolescents that charted evidence of a slight decline in the use of drugs in recent years:

Source: Parents' Resource Institute fo

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set up prison facilities; the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 allocated $10.5 billion for prison construction (Adams, 1996). Traditionally fiscal liberals now "question what kind of bang for the buck the taxpayer is getting from billions of dollars in government spending" (Moore, 1994, p. 1785). The success of treatment programs is also a matter of controversy, varying "according to the type of drug and the variables inherent in the population being treated" (O'Brien & McLellan, 1996, p. 238). Psychosocial factors come strongly into play, including "comorbid" mental or physical conditions and the quality of social and family support and help. Given the highly variable opinions of treatment and punishment strategies of response to teen drug abuse, it follows that prevention assumes greater importance. But prevention programs, too, are a matter of some controversy. Torr, Barbour, and Hurley (1999, p. 52) cite the 1995 Supreme Court decision that upheld a controversial drug-testing program for athletes in Veronica, Oregon as a case in point. They quote a columnist who said that the policy might not keep students from abusing drugs but would "teach them that they have no rights of privacy." On the other hand, p
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Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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