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Recent data from England's National Health Service (NHS) suggest that drinking among young teens is on the decline, and that English teens are generally less likely to abuse substances than their counterparts worldwide. However, experts warn that continued vigilance against underage drinking is needed.

According to the data, which included school surveys from over 8,000 children over three years, young teens in the Northeast reported drinking the most (about six pints of strong beer or two bottles of wine) per week, while young teens in London reported consuming about two-thirds that amount. Overall, the data suggest that the total number of youth regularly consuming alcohol is declining.

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, commented on the reported levels of drinking: "Regular consumption at these levels, especially when compressed into heavy sessions at the weekend puts boys and girls at considerable risk. This extends beyond the usual considerations around accidents and injury through violence. At this age the adolescent mind is still developing, and for an unlucky minority heavy drinking so early will have profound and long lasting implications for their learning and problem solving skills."

(Source: www.timesonline.co.uk)

Labels: teen drinking, teen substance abuse, underage-drinking

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A new study that will be appearing in the March 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, indicates that a neighborhood's alcohol environment plays a role in regulating the risks that youth and young adults will be exposed to.

Researchers have discovered that the pattern of alcohol-related injuries among underage youth and young adults is not random. Rather, it is shaped by the density and type of alcohol outlets that exist in the neighborhood. These injuries include accidents, automobile crashes and assaults. For the study, researchers obtained non-public hospital discharge data from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development on underage youth (18- to 20-year-olds) and young adult (21- to 29-year-olds).

Paul J. Gruenewald, senior research scientist at the Prevention Research Center and corresponding author for the study, commented on the study's findings: "Over the past four decades, public health researchers have come to recognize that although most drinkers safely purchase and enjoy alcohol from alcohol outlets, these places are also associated with serious alcohol-related problems among young people and adults."

Richard Scribner, D'Angelo Professor of Alcohol Research at the LSU School of Public Health, added: "In the early studies, researchers believed associations were due to increased alcohol consumption related to higher alcohol outlet densities.

"However, as the research area has matured, the relations appear to be far more complex. It seems that alcohol outlets represent an important social institution within a neighborhood. As a result, their effects are not limited to merely the consequences of the sale of alcohol."

(Source: www.sciencedaily.com)

Labels: alcohol, teen drinking

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El Paso County, Texas, is seeing a rise in young addicts and violence among youth. Experts believe that the twin trends are no coincidence.

Chilo Madrid, director of an El Paso drug treatment center, comments on the trends: "We are seeing younger and more violent addicts. It's not unusual to see an 18-year-old who has been addicted for three or four years, who's had two or three sexually transmitted diseases, who's belonged to two gangs and who's been shot at more than once."

Madrid estimates that approximately 20 percent of El Paso County's population is addicts, or approximately 150,000 of the 742,000 residents. A Mexican drug cartel just across the United States border, in Juarez, Mexico, makes drugs cheap and easy to obtain in El Paso.

According to Madrid, heroin addiction is especially prevalent in the area: "We do a lot of street research, and we know for a fact that we have 30,000 hard-core heroin users in El Paso, and a lot more people who use cocaine on the weekends.

When we started out in this field, a hit of heroin (a quarter gram) cost $25," Madrid said. "Now, people can get the same quantity for $2.50 a hit. The same is true for cocaine. A hit of cocaine is about two lines.

"They don't go to Juarez or to shooting galleries anymore. People get the drugs by texting on their cell phones. Whereas before, your heroin users were older, we're now seeing kids as young as 16 who are trying heroin and cocaine for the first time."

(Source: behaviorhealthcentral.com)

Labels: cocaine, heroin, violence, addiction

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According to the results of the Pride Survey on Student Behavior and Perception, teens believe that the risks associated with drug use are low.

Virginia Guy of the Drug Education Council in Mobile, Ala., says this trend has been developing over the past couple of years: "The last two or three years we've noticed that there has been an increased low perception of risk -- in other words kids aren't perceiving drugs as being very harmful or risky -- and we have some major concerns."

Guy attributes the trend to reduced funding for drug and alcohol education in public schools.

According to the Pride Survey, alcohol and tobacco use by Alabama teens decreased slightly this year over last year. However, use of alcohol and tobacco remains higher among Alabama teens than teens in other states. In addition, marijuana use by Alabama teens is on the rise. The study included survey responses from 280,000 students in grades six through 12 throughout Alabama.

(Source: www.wkrg.com)

Labels: teen drinking, marijuana, teen drug use

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According to research conducted by the University of Michigan and Stanford University, 18- and 19-year-old drivers who live in a state where the minimum legal drinking age is 21, but live within 25 miles of another state where the drinking age is 18 or 19 are more likely to be involved in a fatal automobile accident.

University of Michigan economist Joel Slemrod, study co-author, commented on the findings: "The availability of different policies just across the border  be they lower excise taxes or the legal sale of fireworks  can compromise the impact of a jurisdiction's own policies and cause efficiency costs as consumers pursue the goods.

"In the case of legalized drinking, being able to drink legally across the border has an additional implication for social costs because the act of drinking and then driving home drunk can itself be dangerous, even fatal, both to the cross-border consumers and other unfortunate drivers and pedestrians."

Slemrod, and Stanford University colleague Michael Lovenheim, studied the effect of states' different minimum drinking ages on alcohol-related traffic deaths since 1977. For the years after 1987, when 21 years of age became the minimum drinking age in all 50 states, they focused on national borders with Canada and Mexico. The researchers found that raising the legal drinking age to 21 has resulted in 5 percent fewer drunk driving fatal automobile accidents for 18-year-olds and 4 percent fewer for 19-year-olds.

(Source: www.sciencedaily.com)

Labels: alcohol, law, underage-drinking

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According to research by the University of Texas at Austin, college students drink larger amounts of alcohol on football game days than on other well-known drinking days such as New Year's Eve and Halloween.

Kim Fromme, an author of the study and director of the University's Studies on Alcohol, Health and Risky Activities Laboratory, commented on the findings: "Most events associated with heavy drinking occur only once a year, such as Spring Break, or once in a lifetime, such as a 21st birthday, but the weekly football schedule presents students with more regular opportunities to drink."

Fromme and co-author Dan J. Neal of Kent State University observed students during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 University of Texas at Austin football seasons. They found that students were especially likely to drink more during high-profile games against conference or national rivals. However, the increased rates only occurred when students were actually on campus.

Fromme commented on this phenomenon: "These results indicate drinking is connected not only to the game itself, but to the social context associated with the event."

(Source: www.sciencedaily.com)

Labels: alcohol, sports, college-drinking

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Researchers in the Northwest of England recently conducted a study of 9,833 15- to 16-year-olds and found that extremely low cost alcohol products are strongly linked to harmful underage drinking.

The researchers, a team from Liverpool John Moores University and Trading Standards (Northwest), surveyed the teens' alcohol consumption habits, the types of drinks they consumed, locations where drinks were consumed, methods of access to alcohol and harm encountered by drinking teens.

Mark Bellis, a researcher, commented on typical outcomes for teens who drank: "Regretted sex after drinking, having been involved in violence when drunk, consuming alcohol in public places and forgetting things after drinking had all been experienced by relatively large proportions of teen drinkers. For children who drink alcohol we did not find any typical drinking patterns where children were at no risk of harms. Accessing alcohol through parents did not remove the risks of alcohol related harms but was associated with lower levels of risk."

Interestingly, researchers found that 19.9 percent of teen drinkers who obtained alcohol from their parents and who drank once per week had been involved in violence when drunk. Among teens whose only access to alcohol was through other means, the incidence of violence increased to 35.9 percent. In addition, researchers found a strong correlation between the consumption of cheaper alcohol products and increased reporting of violence when drunk, risky sexual behavior and drinking in public places.

Bellis said, "Parental efforts should be matched by genuine legislative and enforcement activity to reduce independent access to alcohol by children and to increase the price of cheap alcohol products."

(Source: www.sciencedaily.com)

Labels: alcohol, underage-drinking, violence, sex

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Teens in Medford, Mass., have launched a service which utilizes text-messaging to help peers say "no" to using drugs and alcohol. The program, dubbed "I'm Allergic to Stupid Decisions," is being implemented by a local youth organization call Teens Against Drinking and Drugs (TADD).

Teens in need of assistance send a text to a special number. Within minutes, they will receive a reply with one of three pieces of information: an excuse to help them refuse a drink, a fact on underage drinking, or a sharp retort that suggests an alternative to drugs or alcohol.

Approximately 130 teens have utilized the service so far, receiving over 1,000 texts, according to the program advisor, Gisela Rots. Rots commented, "We want people to know that most youths DON'T drink, and that sometimes they just need to know there are more youth like them. We hope that youth will begin using it at anytime they need it."

(Source: www.boston.com)

Labels: teen substance abuse

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According to a new study, listening to music that mentions marijuana may make teens significantly more likely to use the drug. The study included survey data collected from 959 9th graders.

Among respondents, 12 percent identified themselves as current marijuana users, and 32 percent reported having tried marijuana. Respondents were also asked to list songs that they listened to and researchers analyzed the content of these songs. The average respondent listened to 21.8 hours of music per week and heard about 40 references to marijuana in music each day.

Dr. Brian Primack, lead author, commented on the findings: "Students who listen to music with the most references to marijuana are almost twice as likely to have used the drug as their peers whose musical tastes favor songs less focused on substance use. Interestingly, we also found that exposure to marijuana in music was not associated with other high-risk behaviors, such as excessive alcohol consumption.

"This suggests that there is a real link between the marijuana lyrics and marijuana use. Although it may be that heavy exposure to music about marijuana causes marijuana smoking, it may also be that those who smoke marijuana seek out music with lyrics related to marijuana."

(Source:www.msnbc.com )

Labels: marijuana

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