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Juvenile Offenders 

Heads Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body

Heads Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body is an educational collaboration between NIDA and Scholastic, Inc.

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Scholastic is a global children's publishing and media company with a corporate mission, supported through all of its divisions, of instilling the love of reading and learning for lifelong pleasure in all children. Heads Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body is a drug education series from Scholastic and scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). NIDA and Scholastic joined forces to educate parents, teachers, and 11- to 15-year-olds on the effects drugs can have on the brain and body.

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Source: NIDA for TEENS - http://teens.drugabuse.gov/utilities/scholastic.asp

Youthful Offenders

• Based on SAMHSA's National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2002, almost 1.5 million youths aged 12 to 17 had been in a jail or a detention center at least once in their lifetime.
• Youths who had been detained (that is, had ever been in a jail or a detention center) were more likely than youths who had never been in a jail or a detention center to have used illicit drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes in the past year.
• Past year substance abuse or dependence was almost 3 times higher among youths who had been in a jail or a detention center at least once in their lifetime than among youths who had never been in a jail or a detention center.
• Prescription type drugs were used in the past year by 21.2% of youth who had been in a jail or detention compared with 8.4% of the youth who had never been detained.

Source: http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k4/detainedYouth/detainedYouth.cfm

Age of Use – Illicit Drugss

·         Rates of drug use showed substantial variation by age. For example, 3.8 percent of youths aged 12 or 13 reported current illicit drug use in 2003. As in other years, illicit drug use in 2003 tended to increase with age among young persons, peaking among 18 to 20 year olds (23.3 percent) and declining steadily after that point with increasing age.

·         Among youths, the types of drugs used differed by age in 2003, as was true in prior years. Among 12 or 13 year olds, 1.8 percent used prescription-type drugs nonmedically, 1.4 percent used inhalants, and 1.0 percent used marijuana. Among 14 or 15 year olds, marijuana was the dominant drug used (7.2 percent), followed by prescription-type drugs used nonmedically (4.1 percent) and inhalants (1.4 percent). Marijuana also was the most commonly used drug among 16 or 17 year olds (15.6 percent), followed by prescription-type drugs used nonmedically (6.1 percent), hallucinogens (1.9 percent), and cocaine (1.2 percent). Only 1.0 percent of youths aged 16 or 17 used inhalants.

·         Among all youths aged 12 to 17 in 2003, 11.2 percent were current illicit drug users: 7.9 percent used marijuana, 4.0 percent used prescription-type drugs, 1.3 percent used inhalants, 1.0 percent used hallucinogens, and 0.6 percent used cocaine. Rates of use were highest for the young adult age group (18 to 25 years) at 20.3 percent, with 17.0 percent using marijuana, 6.0 percent using prescription-type drugs nonmedically, 2.2 percent using cocaine, and 1.7 percent using hallucinogens. Among adults aged 26 or older, 5.6 percent reported current illicit drug use: 4.0 percent used marijuana and 1.9 percent used prescription-type drugs. In this latter age group, less than 1 percent used cocaine (0.8 percent), hallucinogens (0.1 percent), and inhalants (0.1 percent).

·         The rate of current illicit drug use among youths aged 12 to 17 did not change significantly between 2002 (11.6 percent) and 2003 (11.2 percent), and there were no changes for any specific drug. The rate of current marijuana use among youths was 8.2 percent in 2002 and 7.9 percent in 2003. However, there were decreases in rates of past year use of LSD (1.3 to 0.6 percent), Ecstasy (2.2 to 1.3 percent), and methamphetamine (0.9 to 0.7 percent). In addition, there was a decline in past month marijuana use among youths aged 12 or 13, from 1.4 percent in 2002 to 1.0 percent in 2003. Past month inhalant use among youths aged 16 or 17 increased from 0.6 percent in 2002 to 1.0 percent in 2003.

·         Among young adults, past month Ecstasy use declined from 1.1 percent in 2002 to 0.7 percent in 2003. However, there was an increase in past month nonmedical use of pain relievers, from 4.1 percent in 2002 to 4.7 percent in 2003. Past year use of hallucinogens declined in this age group from 8.4 percent in 2002 to 6.7 percent in 2003, with declines in the use of Ecstasy (5.8 to 3.7 percent) and LSD (1.8 to 1.1 percent). Rates of illicit drug use for adults aged 26 or older were unchanged between 2002 and 2003.

 Source: 2003 National Survey on Drug Use & Health - http://www.drugabusestatistics.samhsa.gov/NHSDA/2k3NSDUH/2k3results.htm#ch2

Alcohol Usee

·         SAMHSA's National Survey on Drug Use & Health defines alcohol dependence or abuse using criteria specified in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). These criteria include such symptoms as recurrent alcohol use resulting in physical danger, trouble with the law due to alcohol use, increased tolerance to alcohol, and giving up or reducing other important activities in favor of alcohol use.

·         In 2003, almost 74% of adults age 21 or older reported that they had started drinking alcohol before the current legal drinking age of 21: 4% started drinking before age 12; 14% started between ages 12-14; 33% started between ages 15-17; and 22% started drinking between ages 18-20.

·         Among the 14 million adults aged 21 or older who were classified as having past year alcohol dependence or abuse, more than 13 million (95%) had started drinking alcohol before age 21.

·         In SAMHSA's 2003 National Survey on Drug Use & Health, persons reporting first use of alcohol before age 15 were more than 5 times as likely to report past year alcohol dependence or abuse than persons who first used alcohol at age 21 or older (16% vs. 3%).

·         Males aged 21 or older were more likely than females to report having first used alcohol before age 15.

 Source: 2003 National Survey on Drug Use & Health -  http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k4/ageDependence/ageDependence.cfm

Cigarettes & Smokeless Tobacco

• Cigarette use declined in each grade and several categories of use between 2002 and 2003. This follows several years of gradual decreases in cigarette smoking that started after 1996 for 8th-graders, 1997 for 12th-graders, and 1999 for 10th-graders. Twelfth-graders showed a statistically significant drop in 30-day use; all three groups showed significant decreases in lifetime use.
• Lifetime use: 8th grade—from 31.4 percent in 2002 to 28.4 percent in 2003; 10th grade—47.7 percent to 43.0 percent; 12th grade—57.2 percent to 53.7 percent.
• 30-day use: 8th grade—10.7 percent in 2002 to 10.2 percent in 2003; 10th grade—17.7 percent to 16.7 percent; 12th grade—26.7 percent to 24.4 percent.

·         Daily use in past 30 days: 8th grade—5.1 percent in 2002 to 4.5 percent in 2003; 10th grade—10.1 percent to 8.9 percent; 12th grade—16.9 percent to 15.8 percent.

• Annual use of bidis (small, flavored cigarettes from India) declined among 12th-graders from 5.9 percent in 2002 to 4.0 percent in 2003. Annual use of Kreteks (clove-flavored cigarettes from Indonesia) was reported by 8.4 percent of 12th-graders in 2002, dropping to 6.7 percent in 2003.
• Lifetime use of smokeless tobacco by 10th-graders declined from 16.9 percent in 2002 to 14.6 percent in 2003.

Source: NIDA InfoFacts - http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/HSYouthtrends.html

Adolescent Treatment Admission

·         All substance abuse treatment admissions increased 23% between 1992 and 2002. The number of adolescent treatment admissions, however, increased 65% (from 95,000 admissions in 1992 to 156,000 in 2002) and accounted for 8% of all admissions reported to SAMHSA's Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) in 2002.

·         Between 1992 and 2002, adolescent substance abuse treatment admissions reporting marijuana as the primary substance increased from 23% to 64%; while substance abuse treatment admissions reporting alcohol as the primary substance decreased from 56% to 20% of all adolescent substance abuse treatment admissions.

·         In 2002, more than half (54%) of adolescent substance abuse admissions were referred to substance abuse treatment through the criminal justice system compared with 40% in 1992. 

Source: The DASIS Report:  Adolescent Treatment Admissions: 1992 and 2002 - http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k4/youthTX/youthTX.cfm