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Bridgeburner
Not spiritual at all.




Registered: 09/16/06
Posts: 20,010
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Drug use down, but alcohol use unchanged
#7681987 - 11/26/07 02:03 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/city/article/137490
SAINT JOHN - According to the most recent provincial student drug survey, major headway has been made in the fight to reduce drug use among teens.
But the survey also pointed out a rather alarming fact that has haunted youth and challenged addiction counsellors for decades the figure for alcohol use has remained unchanged since the 2002 student survey, with 50 per cent still using alcohol.
Some 26 per cent consume alcohol more than once a month.
As the province officially unveiled the results of the survey at Ridgewood Addiction Services, some in the crowd made it clear that a drug by any other name is still a drug.
"When we talk to kids, we call it alcohol and not a drug," said Julie Dingwell of AIDS Saint John. "We call it alcohol and that sort of separates it."
Students in Grades 7, 9, 10 and 12 were asked to fill out the anonymous survey. Randomly selected, 6,237 were surveyed. Marijuana use has fallen by 10 per cent since the 2002 survey and only 11 per cent of students surveyed report using it more than once a month. Seemingly, drugs such as LSD, mescaline, cocaine, steroids and methamphetamine have fallen from favour and, at least according to the survey, are only used by five per cent of the students surveyed. The number of students using ecstasy, a favourite of the rave scene, has risen to 4.4 per cent, barely half a percentage-point jump since the 2002 survey.
But alcohol is still a huge hurdle that education hasn't been able to really make a significant dent in.
While alcohol is legal and socially acceptable for adults, recent studies have suggested that drinking during adolescence can seriously impact structural and functional brain development in adolescents.
Gerry Munn, manager of the community services division with Ridgewood, said that anti-drug campaigns caught people's attention and had an impact. He realizes that alcohol education took a bit of a backseat in the rush to combat drugs.
"Maybe it's time we begin to refocus on it," Munn said.
"We're not going to let our guard down."
Willow Edwards has been a social worker since 1989 and works with youth at Ridgewood.
While she applauded the survey results, she wondered about the youth that weren't included in the survey - those that had fallen through the cracks and had dropped out of school and landed in the world of drugs.
She knows that when one works treating drug and alcohol addiction, when that's their world, the situation can often seem worse than it is.
"It can have a tendency to alter one's perception," Edwards said.
But how to engage those kids that Edwards worries about is the daunting challenge facing addiction counsellors.
"They are kind of here there and everywhere," said Edwards. "They wouldn't be significant amounts, but they're out there.
"It's not like you can call a town meeting and they'll all show up."
The survey found over the past five years, tobacco use among students has declined by nine per cent. Among Grade 8 students, tobacco usage is almost non-existent and it peaks at approximately 18 per cent with Grade 12 students. Educating youths about the dangers of smoking was credited for the drop in tobacco usage.
But the issue of alcohol abuse among the youth, said Dingwell, needs more resources directed at it. The use of alcohol often brings with it dangerous behaviours such as unprotected sex and drunk driving.
"It's bigger than we know," she said.
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a_guy_named_ai
Stranger

Registered: 09/24/07
Posts: 767
Last seen: 15 years, 7 months
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Re: Drug use down, but alcohol use unchanged [Re: Bridgeburner]
#7683714 - 11/26/07 10:05 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Today's culture doesn't promote moderation and safe mature use of drugs. I think that should be addressed before they go after any one drug. I think alcohol is abused more in this country because it is legal, and because culture has been molded to accept it as the standard norm.
I'm so sick of these statistics. How can you trust these kind of statistics when they only sample a small portion and then use that as if it reflects the general numbers. There are so many factors that go into that, like how they advertized, what region the survey was done, on and on and on. It wouldn't be so difficult in places where the culture is more singular but america promotes diversity, so much it causes confusion imo.
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wireless
Thizziswhatis



Registered: 11/06/06
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Re: Drug use down, but alcohol use unchanged [Re: a_guy_named_ai]
#7684072 - 11/26/07 11:57 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Its completely and totally hypocritical to to tell kids not to drink when every night they see mom have several glasses of wime and dad have his beers and a nightcap. Not to mention how many adults drank when they were kids as well greatly impacts teens views of alcohol. Teens are smarter and more mature than they have ever been. The only way to make it harder for teens to get it would be to make it illegal. Which one would NEVER work and two it would have the same trends and problems that marijuana has as far as crime, use rates, and accessability are concerned. My solution is educate teens about drugs and show how powerful and devestating alcohol is compare to "illegal drugs". Sure this encourages teens to try "hard" drugs but it also allows them to make much more educated, safer, smarter, and controlled decisions about what they put in their body. Especially when it comes education about alcoholism.
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SuperD
Cacti junky



Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 6,648
Loc: The bridgesii bridge
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Re: Drug use down, but alcohol use unchanged [Re: Bridgeburner]
#7685081 - 11/27/07 09:04 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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<<Drug use down, but alcohol use unchanged>>
I'm confused by the article's title. Alcohol is a drug. I hate pointing out inaccuracies, but that one was quite obvious (and in the title, nonetheless).
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   D Manoa said: I need to stop spending all my money on plants and take up a cheaper hobby, like heroin. Looking for Rauhocereus riosaniensis seeds or live specimen(s), me if you have any for trade
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a_guy_named_ai
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Registered: 09/24/07
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Re: Drug use down, but alcohol use unchanged [Re: wireless]
#7685108 - 11/27/07 09:12 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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How is it hypocritical? Parents arn't saying kids won't ever be able to do drugs or alcohol, they're just putting restrictions on them because of their young age and for their health and development. Parents do the same thing with coffee. It seems to logically follow upon your path of logic, for whatever drug parents do kids should be allowed to do the same drug also, and that's rediculous.
I also have to disagree that kids are more mature than they have ever been.I think that's wrong, especially for america.
I'm so sick of this whole "they're going to do it anyway" nonsense. It's something you'd expect from a rebellious little 9th grader perhaps. It makes no sense. SO why don't we make all crimes legal then? The answer isn't to turn our backs on the problem, it's to put energy into education, more stable and healthy culture and families, and change the way society looks at drugs.
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