Drug Abuse
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In an era of concern over drug abuse, an era in which this concern is directed most often at so-called "hard" drugs such as cocaine and crack, alcohol remains the most consumed drug among adolescents and a major health problem for this population (Lewis, 1992: p. 64). The problem is severe: Marks (1989) cites evidence showing that the use of alcohol can be seen as part of an adolescent tendency toward risk-taking behavior, including such behavior as cigarette smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, and reckless driving or other dare-devil exploits, all of which constitute the most common causes of death during adolescence, whether by accident, suicide, or homicide. In terms of drug abuses, the statistics show that alcohol remains the "drug of choice" for the majority of adolescents, and surveys have shown that two-thirds of all American high school seniors questioned had used alcohol at least once in the preceding month. Five percent reported that they drank daily, and 39 percent reported that they had binged on alcohol (or had five or more drinks in succession) within the previous two weeks (p. 264). A report by the U.S. Surgeon General shows an even higher incidence reported--among high school seniors in 1990, 90 percent had used alcohol at last once; 51 percent of junior and senior high school students had used alcohol at least once within the previous year; and among the 20.7 million 7th through 12th graders in 1990, more than half had consumed alcohol at leas
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auma intervenes. (There is evidence that the size of the college contributes to the amount of drinking, with smaller colleges experiencing more drinking per student ["Study finds more drinking at small colleges than at large ones," 1992: p. 20].) Undergraduates currently spend $4.2 billion a year on alcohol, far more than they spend on textbooks. Nearly three-quarters of all college students drink at least once a month, and 41 percent of them indulge in heavy drinking. Drinking often begins at home, without adult monitoring, and large unsupervised parties where kids drink to get drunk as fast as possible are regular weekend events for many American teenagers. Parents who grew up in the drug culture of the sixties and seventies often allow this to take place by looking the other way (Elson, 1991: pp. 64-65).
One element in the problem of teenage drinking is that many parents see alcohol as less of a problem and less of a concern than marijuana and cocaine, and these parents are often just happy that their children are not using harder drugs (Gibbs, 1988: p. 94). Many parents serve as bad examples by drinking themselves so that their children think of alcohol as a less threatening drug. Bob Martinez, White House drug czar, s
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Approximate Word count = 2746
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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