Teen Age Drug Abuse

One simple weapon against teen age drug abuse is communication. If you are just now getting around to trying to figure out how to talk to your troubled teens, well, you have a lot of catching up to do. Communication isn’t really based on words, no matter how brilliantly they are delivered. Communication starts with relationship. And cultivating that relationship starts at infancy.

Trust and relationship between parent and child starts from childhood up. Trust that parents will need from their kids when they are at logger heads during their teen years. Ideally, at least, there needs to be a history of effective communication for parents to be able to comfortably discuss the dangers that teens face on many fronts.

Communication means that parents have an ongoing dialogue with their teen.

“No loving relationship can exist without communication. Teens believe they have valuable things to say and, when a parent listens genuinely, it helps self-esteem and confidence. The most important thing to remember when it comes to talking about difficult subjects like drinking and drugs is that it’s not a five-minute “talk” — it’s about building an ongoing dialogue. As your children grow up, they will need more and more information, so start early and build on the conversation as your teen matures.
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Virtually all parents in America (98 percent) say they’ve talked with their children about drugs; however, only 27 percent of teens…say they’re learning a lot at home about the risks of drugs…
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Yet the better you communicate, the more at ease your teen will feel about discussing drugs and other sensitive issues with you.

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In a perfect world there would be no teen age drug abuse, no brat camps, no juvenile justice. In that world, young people would not only discover their gifts and talent, they would do so at an early age, allowing them to direct all their energy into learning how to execute their passion successfully, paving a way to a productive and satisfying life.

It seems so simple, yet it is so hard.

“You have to find their passion,” she says of children.”

She is a mother who home schooled her son until fourth grade, “…she exposed him to a world of possibilities“. At 8 years of age, the young man found his passion;rebuilding and designing cars and his parents had faith in his vision.

“Several years and about $50,000 later, according to Bell’s mother, who sold a car and refinanced her home to acquire cars and tools for her son, Bell has become an accomplished welder, cutter and chopper.”

Another phrase I have heard used is that you have to find a child’s gift, that which they were born to do. But how many adults are still trying to find what they love to do, and if they do happen to figure it out, can they make a living from it?

We don’t live in that perfect world, but the principle of finding what you love and doing it is exemplified by this story. A story where parents take the time to know their teen, present the worlds possibilities, and guide and support them as they hone their skills and master their strengths.

Teen age drug abuse, a huge issue in and of itself, is but a symptom of a general troubled teens’ emotional malaise that can manifest in other harmful practices besides just drug consumption. One group of teens dwell in the nether worlds of a sub-culture known as Emos. If you haven’t heard of Emos, you’ll perhaps have heard of “cutting” or self-harm, a practice that is at the heart of this sad, self-absorbed group of teens who choose darkness over light, tragedy over hope.

“One of the most annoying characteristics.. is their refusal to open their curtains. Their world is dark and airless.

If this environment is coupled with the psychological traits of self-pity, introspection, self-dramatisation and hormone imbalance, you have a fully-fledged Emo…”

More or less, Emo teens are the offspring of the Goth culture, participants of which are noted for their fixation on black, death and morbidity. The difference, however, is that Emo’s have as a centerpiece of their world a fixation with hurting themselves.

“The Emos - short for Emotional - regard themselves as a cool, young sub-set of the Goths.

Although the look is similar, the point of distinction, frightening for schools and parents, is a celebration of self harm.

Emos exchange competitive messages on their teenage websites about the scars on their wrists and how best to display them. Girls’ secondary schools have for some time been concerned about the increase in self harm.

One governor of a famous boarding school told me that it was as serious a problem as binge drinking, but rarely discussed for fear of encouraging more girls to do it.”
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Related:

• Private Boarding Schools for Depressed Teen Girls
  

Teen age drug abuse is often the consequence of a teenager self-medicating in an attempt to defeat anxiety and depression. My good friend Angela described her inadvertent route to addiction via amphetamines.

What seems like aeons ago, methamphetamines were regularly - and liberally - prescribed as diet pills. Comic parodies of the age depicted diet pills as “mother’s little helpers”. Angela’s mother always had an ample supply and she discovered, at age 13, that they helped her whip through the homework that had been tedious hell before.

Unfortunately, Angela was coming of age in the “hippie” era and readily discovered that marijuana helped soothe the nerves that the diet pills rattled. By the time she was sixteen, she was a high functioning heroin addict. What started as a 13 year old self-medicating to deal with what is now recognized as ADD, turned into a 16 year long battle with drugs.

A recent study released on marijuana suggests that the same self-medicating mechanism is operative when a teen finds comfort in pot. Apparently, in small amounts, THC, acts as an anti-depressant.

“A new neurobiological study has observed that a synthetic form of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, is an effective anti-depressant at low doses. However, at higher doses, the effect reverses itself and can actually worsen depression and other psychiatric conditions like psychosis.

It has been known for a number of years that depletion of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain leads to depression, so SSRI-class anti-depressants like Prozac and Celexa work by enhancing the available concentration of serotonin in the brain. However, this study offers the first evidence that cannabis can also increase serotonin, at least at lower doses.”
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Though there are reports that teens are doing less illegal drugs, the same reports indicate that teens’ have simply replaced them with illegal prescription drugs. Teen age drug abuse remains an ongoing challenge to parents and communities.

Drugs, of course, introduce a host of other possible dire consequences. The teen’s education is trashed, sexual promiscuity, long term health problems and emotional trauma. There is no cease fire or treaties with narcotics. At least not in the foreseeable future.

More than ever, parents need facts regarding exposure to addictive drugs faced by their children, according to ASAP (Adolescent Substance Abuse Program). The program offers the following data:

• Teenagers who drink or use drugs are much more likely to be sexually active, starting sexual intercourse as early as middle school.
• Teens who start drinking before the age of 15 are four times more likely to be become alcohol dependent than those who begin drinking at the legal age of 21.
• As the use of marijuana among young people has steadily increased, the perceived risk of marijuana use has decreased.
• The number one killer of teens is alcohol-related car crashes.
• The most important factor in protecting children from drug abuse is parents, but children spend more time watching TV than they spend interacting with their parents.

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Articles about teen age drug abuse focus a great deal on meth, heroin, and club drugs. And rightfully so given the prevalence of their use amongst teens. But marijuana is still the most common drug used by teens, so much so that it is close to becoming normalized due to the casual attitudes towards it, emanating from both teens and many parents. But that is not how it is being viewed by the juvenile courts.

One day, a Texas judge was curious if all of the teens standing before him in court would test positive for drugs. He wasn’t expecting that every single one of them would. Wondering if there is a correlation between pot use and truancy, the judge intends to implement a good deal more drug testing in order to find out.

“Ball ordered the students and their parents to report to the Alcohol and Drug Awareness Council..where… counselors will perform interviews to try to identify the problem, and based on the information gathered, will decide whether education or a referral to a level of care is appropriate. No drug charges were filed against the students who tested positive in truancy court because they were not in possession of drugs at the time, Ball said.

Marijuana may seem like an “old school” drug, but its popularity is still going strong among today’s youth…

More than 80 percent of local seniors say the drug is “easy to get”…the average age of first use among Texas students is 13.5 years old, according to the Texans Standing Tall Report Card, meaning most students are in middle school when they first try the drug.”

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If you overhear one of your teens talking about some good “skunk”, they were not referring to the animal of that name. An obstacle that those who fight against teenage drug abuse must continually overcome is the notion that marijuana is a harmless recreational drug, without any lasting ill side effects. However, if you read about troubled teens and drugs a good deal, you’ll have noticed more and more mention of reports surfacing in Great Britain that suggest otherwise. Potent weed is referred to as “skunk” and it isn’t your father’s marijuana anymore.

“The devastating effects of skunk cannabis on the nation’s mental health are revealed here for the first time, showing where the drug has hit hardest around the country.

Some areas have suffered a tenfold increase in people mentally ill from using the drug.

Nationally, skunk smokers are ending up ill in hospital in record numbers, with admissions soaring 73 per cent. The number of adults recorded as suffering mental illness as a result of cannabis use has risen sharply from 430 in 1996 to 743 in 2006.

The government data shows how the damaging effects of the drug have swept across England…as the debate over the drug’s dangers continues, figures released by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Abuse (NTA) show that more than 24,500 people are in drug treatment programmes for cannabis – the highest ever.

It is the most commonly misused drug by children, accounting for 75 per cent of those requiring treatment. That’s 11,582 under-18s – more than double those in treatment for cannabis abuse in 2005.

And more adults (13,087) are in drug treatment programmes for cannabis abuse than for crack or cocaine.”
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It is amazing that childhood remedies - simple medicines designed to alleviate the discomforts of the common cold, are now a target in the campaign against teen age drug abuse. But when troubled teens are determined to get high, they will find any possible method available to do so.

DXM is the primary ingredient in cough medicines that teens seek as an intoxicant. It can be found in your medicine shelf and at your local drug store. But as parents wise up and start putting these simple medicines under lock and key, as are drug stores, teens are simply turning to the internet.

“There are a number of disreputable websites that provide “how-to” guides to get high off of DXM. These sites include information recommending how much DXM to use, suggest other drugs to combine with DXM, provide instructions on how to extract DXM from cough medicines, promote drug abuse in general, and even offer for purchase a raw, unfinished form of DXM for snorting.”

Recent legislation passed in the house,the Dextromethorphan Distribution Act of 2007, is designed to thwart the sale of bulk DMX.

“In 2005, two teenagers in my district died after overdosing on unfinished DXM they bought on the Internet,” said Congressman Rick Larsen. “The loss of these children is a tragedy that will be forever felt by their families and communities. We cannot continue to allow this dangerous drug to be only a click of the mouse away from our homes and our children. I urge the Senate to act quickly and approve this common sense measure to protect our kids.”
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Vanity, thy name is teenager. And that’s as it should be - for awhile. Narcissism will, in a healthy human being, give way to compassion, empathy and regard for others. But for awhile, teens are indeed vain. That is what the producers of the newest campaign against teen age drug abuse are appealing to when they developed and produced a short film depicting the grotesque results of meth addiction.

“To avoid tired clichés and hollow messages, the group attempted to appeal to an issue close to the heart of young people — themselves.

“ We really tried to get into the vanity issues of what you look like if you’re a meth user, ” Maloney said.

The spots, which are in both English and Spanish, focus on how quickly the drug ages users by rotting their teeth and wrinkling their skin and how easy it is to become addicted to the substance.

“ Young people will have a little bit more of an in-your-face experience with it in an entertaining way, ” he said. “ There’s no reason to try to sugar-coat this stuff. Be honest and sincere about what you’re trying to tell people, and it comes through. ”

It comes through on billboards, on TV specials saturating the local air waves, and in spots slotted to run between previews and movies at the theater. The power of meth to ravage communities is keenly felt by entire towns whose youth have been targeted by drug cartels from south of the border. A stark, candid presentation was deemed to be the right approach.

“Maloney determined that the same old educational techniques wouldn’t work anymore. Young people are relational, and their own encounters with the ill effects of drug use will convince them more than any cliché ever will, he said.”

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Death recruits dedicated soldiers in the war against teen age drug abuse. Bereaved parents galvanized to action by the deaths of their sons and daughters have been responsible for creating countless programs for troubled teens and campaigns directed at educating teens and parents about drug addiction and culture.

One father, devastated by the accidental overdose of his 19 year old son, has taken his battle closer to the front lines by establishing DAMMAD (Dads And Mad Moms Against Drug-Dealers), dedicated to busting the dealer by providing a means for citizens to leave anonymous tips.

“Since founding DAMMAD following the death of his 19 year old son from a prescription drug overdose in January 2001, Steven Steiner Sr. and his wife Julie have provided law enforcement with over 2600 tips, resulting in 77arrests and 37 convictions in states including Georgia, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania,South Carolina and Mississippi. So far $10,100.00 dollars in reward money has been paid to tipsters.”

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Such efforts have become even more valuable when everyday citizens sometimes are too frightened to contact the police. In the world of hip hop, street cred is partly predicated on not providing evidence of a crime to the police. Certain super stars in that world are spearheading a campaign that has resulted in intimidating willing witnesses from testifying. Websites like these serve to provide a very safe route for the transmission of tips that can lead to taking a few dealers and ‘gangstas’ off the street.

Don’t let death be the inspiration for you to be active in your community. Find the local anti-drug programs that are doing a good job and support them. They are fighting for your teenagers, too.