Although the use of illegal drugs among teens is dropping in the United States, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse 50% of high-school graduates have tried illegal drugs, 23% will have used them within the thirty days before the survey, and anywhere from 0.5 to 7% are using drugs on an almost daily basis.
Most teens that use drugs are not addicted, although those 0.5 to 7% who use on a daily basis most likely are. But many teens are involved in drug abuse. In fact a 2004 survey conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services found that an estimated “19.1 million Americans aged 12 or older were using illicit drugs.”
Drug abuse is the “overindulgence in and dependence on an addictive substance, especially alcohol or a narcotic drug.” A drug abuser is not always addicted to drugs. According to the Mayo Clinic, the difference is that a person who is addicted according “compulsively seeks to use a substance, regardless of the potentially negative social, psychological and physical consequences.” Addiction involves lack of control and the “repeated inability to take personal responsibility for behaviors.”
Charles Roper, Ph.D., the coordinator of alcohol and drug education for the University of Texas at Austin, gives some behavioral differences between drug abuse and addiction on his website Alcohol & Drug Abuse.com:
People who abuse drugs:
- use drugs to help them change the way they feel about themselves and/or some aspect(s) of their lives.
- experience some problems associated with their drug use but use those experiences to set appropriate limits on how much and how often they use.
- seldom, if ever, repeat the drug-related behaviors that have caused them problems in the past.
- get complaints about their using and accept those complaints as expressions of concern for their well-being.
People who are addicted to drugs:
- experience negative consequences associated with using but continue to use despite those consequences.
set limits on how much or how often they will use but unexpectedly exceed those limits. - promise themselves and/or other people that they will use in moderation but break those promises.
feel guilty or remorseful about their using but still fail to permanently alter the way they use. - get complaints about their using and resent, discount, and/or disregard those comments and complaints.
The consistent using of drugs is not a matter of free will. Dr. Steen Hyman of the National Institute of Mental Health says frequent drug use “changes the way nerve cells communicate in such a way that you develop this compulsive, out-of-control use despite knowing that all kinds of terrible things can happen to you, and despite even experiencing many of those things.” Teens who are addicted to drugs will not be able to overcome the habit by themselves, but will need professional help.
The most common drugs which teens become addicted to are listed below:
- Cannabinoids (e.g., hashish and marijuana)
- Stimulants (e.g., amphetamines and cocaine)
- Depressants (e.g., Xanax and Qualudes)
- Narcotics (aka opioids and morphine derivatives, e.g., heroin, opium, Vicodin)
- Hallucinogens (e.g., LSD and mescaline)
- Dissociative anesthetics (e.g., PCP)
- Other compounds (e.g., steroids and inhalants)
For signs and symptoms of drug abuse and addiction read my upcoming blog, “Signs of Drug Abuse.”
Also see my upcoming blogs on how to talk to teens about drugs.