Chart 2
Percentage of High School Seniors Who Have Used Cocaine
Source: Institute for Social Research 1986
Drug use is widespread among American schoolchildren. The United States has the highest rate of teenage drug use of any industrialized nation. The drug problem in this country is 10 times greater than in Japan, for example. Sixty-one percent of high school seniors have used drugs. Marijuana use remains at an unacceptably high level; 41 percent of 1985 seniors reported using it in the last year, and 26 percent said they had used it at least once in the previous month. Thirteen percent of seniors indicated that they had used cocaine in the past year. This is the highest level ever observed, more than twice the proportion in 1975.
Many students purchase and use drugs at school. A recent study of teenagers contacting a cocaine hotline revealed that 57 percent of the respondents bought most of their drugs at school. Among 1985 high school seniors, one-third of the marijuana users reported that they had smoked marijuana at school. Of the seniors who used amphetamines during the past year, two-thirds reported having taken them at school.
The drug problem affects all types of students. All regions and all types of communities show high levels of drug use. Forty-three percent of 1985 high school seniors in nonmetropolitan areas reported illicit drug use in the previous year, while the rate for seniors in large metropolitan areas was 50 percent. Although higher proportions of males are involved in illicit drug use, especially heavy drug use, the gap between the sexes is lessening. The extent to which high school seniors reported having used marijuana is about the same for blacks and whites; for other types of drugs reported, use is slightly higher among whites.
Initial drug use occurs at an increasingly early age. The percentage of students using drugs by the sixth grade has tripled over the last decade. In the early 1960's, marijuana use was virtually nonexistent among 13-year-olds, but now about one in six 13-year-olds has used marijuana.
Drugs and Dependence
Drugs cause physical and emotional dependence. Users may develop an overwhelming craving for specific drugs, and their bodies may respond to the presence of drugs in ways that lead to increased drug use.
- Regular users of drugs develop tolerance, a need to take larger doses to get the same initial effect. They may respond by combining drugs—frequently with devastating results. Many teenage drug users calling a national cocaine hotline report that they take other drugs just to counteract the unpleasant effects of cocaine.
- Certain drugs, such as opiates and barbiturates, create physical dependence. With prolonged use, these drugs become part of the body chemistry. When a regular user stops taking the drug, the body experiences the physiological trauma known as withdrawal.
- Psychological dependence occurs when drug taking becomes the center of the user's life. Among children, psychological dependence erodes school performance and can destroy ties to family, friendships, outside interests, values, and goals. The child goes from taking drugs to feel good, to taking them to keep from feeling bad. Over time, drug use itself heightens the bad feelings and can leave the user suicidal. More than half of all adolescent suicides are drug-related.
- Drugs and their harmful side effects can remain in the body long after use has stopped. The extent to which a drug is retained in the body depends on the drug's chemical composition, that is, whether or not it is fat-soluble. Fat-soluble drugs such as marijuana, phencyclidine (PCP), and lysergic acid (LSD) seek out and settle in the fatty tissues. As a result, they build up in the fatty parts of the body such as the brain. Such accumulations of drugs and their slow release over time may cause delayed effects (flashbacks) weeks and even months after drug use has stopped.