Drug Counselor Video Transcription
“…if you think of trends, we kind of make sure that we’re real clear about what we’re looking at today as opposed to maybe 30 years ago. One of the things that – let’s start with the positive first. I think the positive thing is that when you look at national figures as well as state figures, the use of actually cigarettes and alcohol has actually been the lowest, which might surprise all of you in the last 30 years. Contrary to maybe popular myth, the use of alcohol is also down amongst eighth graders, tenth graders, and twelfth graders. I like to tell parents that if you think about the 10%, 20%, and 30% rule, it’s interesting that yes, although experimentation does pick up as our kids get older, it’s actually very, very low right now.
There are areas of concern though, which I really want to talk about, and I think that’s what this question is getting at. Marijuana use, for example, has not gone down. It has actually been steady over the last ten years and this harkens back to the way I opened up. Marijuana being used today by our teens is a lot more potent than it was in the 70s. It’s grown hydroponically. It’s grown out of water, and so the marijuana that was being consumed back in the 70s may have had potency of maybe 5% of THC. Today, it’s anywhere from 18% to 24% for the THC, so that’s a real area of concern.
Of course, what we shall talk about later is this real increase in prescription drug abuse. Fifty percent of seniors across the country, seniors in high school it is, they’re reporting that they have either been given Vicodin, OxyContin from relatives or are being sold by kids on campus, so we want to be really aware of that.”
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