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One out of every three teenagers in Georgia does not believe methamphetamine is risky, one in five say it is easy to obtain and that someone has offered it to them, one in three say that the drug helps you lose weight, and one in four say it makes you happy.

Almost 60 percent of Georgia teenagers have never discussed that the methamphetamine use with their parents.

These alarming statistics are from the Georgia Methamphetamine Use and Attitudes Survey of 2,432 teenagers and 314 young adults.

The survey was part of a project aimed at preventing teenagers from trying methamphetamine. The adults in the survey were more likely to believe that methamphetamine is beneficial.

• 32 percent of the adults believe methamphetamine helps you lose weight
• 23 percent of young adults believe it makes you happy
• 19 percent of young adults believe it helps you deal with boredom.
  

The problem is that methamphetamine is far from safe and extremely addictive. It changes the chemistry of the brain, causing intense cycles of high and low energy and mood changes, and causing the brain to release dopamine at four times the levels that cocaine does.

"Methamphetamine is a lot more powerful than cocaine and the effect lasts longer, " said Neil Kaltenecker, spokesperson for the Georgia Council on Substance Abuse. "Not to mention that the caustic materials used to make the drugs are toxic."

Labels: research, meth

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

A new study of laboratory animals found that exercise decreased cocaine-seeking behaviors among adolescents.

• Researchers at the Brookhaven Laboratory and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Laboratory of Neuroimaging exposed a group of "teenage" rats to cocaine that they could administer themselves.
• Then they allowed some control animals to be sedentary while others ran on treadmills.
• The adolescent rats who exercised also decreased the amounts of cocaine they used.
• Female rats tended to use more cocaine than males and preferred not to exercise more often than males.

"This is a first step in trying to understand the connection between exercise and substance abuse," said lead author Peter Thanos.

The study was published in the journal Behavioral Brain Research.

Labels: research, cocaine, treatment

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments

Adolescent substance abuse is most common among Hispanic middle school students and least common among Asians, according to a new study from the RAND Corporation.

• Researchers studied 5,000 students in seventh and eighth grades in California, and found that Hispanics were more likely to drink, smoke cigarettes and use marijuana than other ethnic groups.
• Their substance abuse was related to their ability to say no and to their beliefs about the negative and positive effects of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.
• Asian students were not influenced by those two factors, and instead made decisions about substance use based on respect for their parents and role modeling by their older siblings.

The RAND study, which was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, appears in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Labels: research, substance use, students

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 2 Comments