Facts

  • A child who reaches age 21 without smoking, using illegal drugs or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so.
  • Each day more than 13,000 children and teens take their first drink.
  • Children and teens who begin using any addictive substance before age 15 are six and a half times likelier to be addicted than those who wait until age 21 or older.
  • More than five million high school students, almost a third, admit binge drinking at least once a month.
  • On average, teenagers who use alcohol, tobacco and marijuana begin using them between 12 and 14 years of age, with some of the highest risk kids starting to use even earlier.
  • More than forty percent of America’s teens – some 10 million – can buy marijuana within a day and 20 percent—some 5 million—can get it in an hour or less.
  • Kids are particularly vulnerable to substance use during transitions from elementary to middle school, middle to high school, and from high school to college.  Family disruptions, which can include separation and divorce, a death in the family, or even something like a move to a new home or a new town can hike a teens’ risk of substance use.
  • The number of Americans who misuse controlled prescription drugs has nearly doubled from 7.8 million to 15.1 million from 1992 to 2003 and misuse among teens has more than tripled during that time.
  • One-third of teens and nearly half of 17-year olds attend house parties where parents are present and teens are drinking, smoking marijuana or using cocaine, Ecstasy or prescription drugs.
  • Parents who use illegal drugs, drink excessively and use tobacco put half the nation’s children – more than 35 million of them – at greater risk of substance use and of physical and mental illnesses.
  • Eighty-four percent of sites offering controlled prescription drugs such as Vicodin, OxyContin, Adderall and Ritalin do not require that the patient provide a prescription from his or her doctor. There are no controls stopping sales of these drugs to children.
  • Forty-nine percent (3.8 million) of full time college students binge drink, use illegal drugs and/or misuse prescription drugs.
  • Teens who have infrequent family dinners are more than twice as likely to say that they expect to try drugs in the future.
  • Teens who have infrequent family dinners are twice as likely to use tobacco or marijuana; more than one and a half times likelier to use alcohol; and twice as likely to expect to try drugs in the future.
  • Teens who have seen their parent(s) drunk are more than twice as likely to get drunk in a typical month, and three times likelier to use marijuana and smoke cigarettes.
  • In 2009, more than one third of teens (8.7 million) said they can get prescription drugs to get high within a day; nearly one in five teens (4.7 million) could get them within an hour.
  • Half of college students binge drink and/or use other drugs and almost a quarter meet medical criteria for addiction.
  • Girls and women become addicted to alcohol, nicotine and illegal and prescription drugs, and develop substance-related diseases at lower levels of use and in shorter periods of time than their male counterparts.
  • Girls and young women are likelier to use addictive substances in order to lose weight, relieve stress or boredom, improve their mood, reduce sexual inhibitions, self-medicate depression, and increase confidence.
  • Nearly one-quarter of all girls report beginning to drink alcohol before age 13.

Source: The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University’s reports: Family Matters: Substance Abuse and the American Family, National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XI: Teens and Parents, Teen Tipplers: America’s Underage Drinking Epidemic, The Commercial Value of Underage Drinking and Adult Abusive and Dependent Drinking to the Alcohol Industry, Under the Counter: The Diversion and Abuse of Controlled Prescription Drugs in the U.S., Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities and “You’ve Got Drugs!” IV: Prescription Drug Pushers on the Internet, The Importance of Family Dinners V and VI, and the following books: Women Under the Influence and High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It.