NCJ Number
201752
Date Published
August 2003
Length
69 pages
Annotation
This report contains 2003 survey data concerning teenage use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana in the United States.
Abstract
A telephone survey was conducted with 1,987 teenagers aged 12 to 17. Respondents were asked about the prevalence of tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs in the teenager’s daily life. This year’s survey measured the impact of three circumstances on a teenager’s risk factor for engaging in substance abuse: teenage stress, frequency of boredom, and the amount of weekly spending money. Results indicate that teenagers who are under high amounts of stress are at a significantly higher risk for using drugs than their moderate to low stress counterparts. Among the high-stress teenagers, about half knew a friend who used drugs frequently or was in drug treatment, 40 percent could obtain marijuana within a few hours, and one in five said future drug use on their part was “likely.” Seventeen percent of respondents claimed to be bored frequently; these teenagers were more likely to perform poorly in school and have a higher substance abuse risk score than teenagers who were only occasionally bored. Another factor putting teenagers at risk for substance abuse is the amount of spending money they have during a typical week; those with more money to spend are at greater risk of spending it on drugs. Other important findings include the finding that teenagers rank academic pressures and social pressures as their biggest concerns with the same frequency with which they rank drugs as their biggest concern. In previous years, drugs has ranked as the number one concern among teenagers. Parents of teenagers cited similar concerns for their children, with the concern about drug use topping the list. Another important finding concerned the fact that there is a declining proximity to drugs among teenagers; 56 percent of respondents had no friends who regularly drank, 68 percent had no friends who used marijuana, and 70 percent had no friends who smoked cigarettes. However, 52 percent of teenagers attended school where drugs were kept, used, or sold. Finally, teenagers were more likely to be optimistic about their ability to stay away from drugs than were their parents. However, only 48 percent of parents reported they could confidently handle a drug problem in their teenager.