Wood County Prevention Coalition
Uniting For A Drug-Free Community Since 2004
What makes marijuana users different from everyone else
The Washington Post Christopher Ingraham
August 14
A massive study published this month in the Journal of Drug Issues found that the proportion of marijuana users who smoke daily has rapidly grown, and that many of those frequent users are poor and lack a high-school diploma.
Examining a decade of federal surveys of drug use conducted between 2002 and 2013, study authors Steven Davenport and Jonathan Caulkins paint one of the clearest pictures yet of the demographics of current marijuana use in the U.S. They found that the profile of marijuana users is much closer to cigarette smokers than alcohol drinkers, and that a handful of users consume much of the marijuana used in the U.S.
"In the early 1990s only one in nine past-month [marijuana] users reported using daily or near-daily," Davenport and Caulkins write. "Now it is fully one in three. Daily or near-daily users now account for over two-thirds of self-reported days of use (68%)."
These usage patterns are similar to what's seen among tobacco users. "What’s going on here is that over the last 20 years marijuana went from being used like alcohol to being used more like tobacco, in the sense of lots of people using it every day," Caulkins said in an email.
Adults with less than a high school education accounted for 19 percent of all marijuana use in 2012 and 2013 (compared to 13 percent of the total adult population), according to the survey. This is similar to their 20 percent share of all cigarette use, but considerably higher than their 8 percent share of all alcohol use.
Similarly, Americans of all ages with a household income of less than $20,000 accounted for 29 percent of all marijuana use and 27 percent of all cigarette use, compared to only 13 percent of all alcohol use and 19 percent of the total adult population.
The concentration of use among poorer households means that many marijuana users are spending a high proportion of their income on their marijuana habit. Users who spend fully one quarter of their income on weed account for 15 percent of all marijuana use.
Parenting to Prevent Childhood Alcohol Use
NIH January 2016
Drinking alcohol undoubtedly is a part of American culture, as are conversations between parents and children about its risks and potential benefits. However, information about alcohol can seem contradictory. Alcohol affects people differently at different stages of life—small amounts may have health benefits for certain adults, but for children and adolescents, alcohol can interfere with normal brain development. Alcohol’s differing effects and parents’ changing role in their children’s lives as they mature and seek greater independence can make talking about alcohol a challenge. Parents may have trouble setting concrete family policies for alcohol use. And they may find it difficult to communicate with children and adolescents about alcohol-related issues.
Research shows, however, that teens and young adults do believe their parents should have a say in whether they drink alcohol. Parenting styles are important—teens raised with a combination of encouragement, warmth, and appropriate discipline are more likely to respect their parents’ boundaries. Understanding parental influence on children through conscious and unconscious efforts, as well as when and how to talk with children about alcohol, can help parents have more influence than they might think on a child’s alcohol use. Parents can play an important role in helping their children develop healthy attitudes toward drinking while minimizing its risk.
Alcohol Use by Young People
Adolescent alcohol use remains a pervasive problem. The percentage of teenagers who drink alcohol is slowly declining; however, numbers are still quite high. About 26 percent of adolescents report drinking by 8th grade, and nearly 47 percent report being drunk at least once by 12th grade (Johnston et al. 2015).
Parenting Style
Accumulating evidence suggests that alcohol use—and in particular binge drinking—may have negative effects on adolescent development and increase the risk for alcohol dependence later in life (Grant and Dawson 1997; Squeglia et al. 2009).
Prescription drug abuse tied to increased risk of teen suicide
Suicide is a leading cause of death for teens worldwide, and the odds of suicide attempts may be higher when adolescents abuse prescription drugs, a Chinese study suggests.
To explore the connection between suicide risk and misuse of prescription opiates and sedatives, researchers surveyed about 3,300 Chinese teens once when they were about 14 years old and again a year later.
Teens who said they used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons at the start of the study were almost three times as likely to report a suicide attempt a year later, and the risk was more than tripled for youth who abused opiates, researchers report in JAMA Pediatrics.
“Baseline opioids misuse, sedatives misuse, and nonmedical use of . . . prescription drugs were positively associated with later suicidal ideation,” said lead study author Dr. Lan Guo of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.
Those thoughts were more likely to turn into suicide attempts with “baseline opioids misuse and nonmedical use of any prescription drugs,” Guo added by email.
Less than 3 percent of the teens reported misuse of any prescription drugs, with 1.8 percent saying they used opiates or stimulants for nonmedical reasons and about 1 percent reporting abuse of sedatives.
Overall, 17 percent of the participants reported suicidal thoughts, and 3 percent reported suicide attempts in the survey at the end of the study.
The link between drug abuse and suicide persisted even after researchers accounted for teens who reported experiencing depression at the start of the study.
While the study doesn’t examine why abuse of prescriptions and other drugs might be linked to a greater suicide risk, it’s possible that these drugs might alter teens’ moods or lower inhibitions in a way that allows suicidal impulses to flourish, the authors conclude.Limitations of the study include its reliance on teens to accurately report and recall both drug use and suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts, the authors note.
Teens and E-Cigarettes (Infographic from Monitoring the Future 2015, NIDA/NIH)
Wood County Prevention Coalition Meeting
Friday, Sep 16, 2016, 08:30 AM
Wood County Educational Service Center 1867 N Research Drive, Bowling Green, OH, United States
RSVPs are enabled for this event.
About Us
Our Vision: Helping youth be drug-free, productive and responsible citizens.
Our Mission: We are a coalition of compassionate community members working together to coordinate high quality programs for the prevention of youth substance abuse in Wood County.
Email: mkarna@wcesc.org
Website: wcprevention.org
Location: 1867 Research Drive, Bowling Green, OH, United States
Phone: (419)-354-9010
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WCPCoalition
Twitter: @woodpccoalition