Teen Issues

I have a child who has aerosol cans under the bed.

Drug use among young people surfaced in the 60’s as a sign of rebellion and a way of acting out against “the establishment.” The drugs of choice were marijuana, alcohol, and speed. Over the years, inhalants (aerosols, gasoline, butane, freon, correction fluid, glue, etc.) became more readily used by younger children because of their nominal cost and availability. Those that experimented with inhalants often turned to marijuana and harder drugs. Since the 90’s older teenagers continued to use inhalants by themselves and in combination with other drugs. Inhalants are one of the most destructive kinds of drugs because of the damage they cause to the brain, liver, and kidneys.

Because of the danger to your child’s life, act swiftly. First of all, have a frank discussion with your child to explain why you are taking such harsh actions: you love him/her and have been entrusted by God to look out for his/her welfare. Since he/she obviously does not regard the foolishness of his/her actions and the danger it presents to his/her wellbeing, you are imposing a strict punishment in order to make him/her understand the consequences of drugs. If this does not stop the behavior, you need to seek intervention. Addiction is deadly!

Explain that you are going to be extremely vigilant to see that he/she does not slip into this behavior again. Even though it appears that a child wants “freedom”, he/she really wants the opposite. When he/she knows that his/her parents care enough about him/her to monitor his/her behavior closely, his/her sense of security increases.

• According to the 2007 SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 17.2% of youth indicated that inhalants were the first drug that they used.

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I have a child who is apathetic:  he just sits around the house and does nothing.

An apathetic child is more difficult to help because there is no emotion, no fight, no will to do anything.

If your child is apathetic, schedule an appointment with a physician to rule out any physical problem. A teen needs proper nourishment, and much more sleep than at any other time in his/her life.

The hormonal changes taking place in his/her body often take a toll on his/her emotional equilibrium. Where one child may rage, another may be inert and apathetic. A child’s apathy may be a covert manifestation of anger. This apathy is demonstrated by passive-aggressive behavior, which is very subtle.

In a sense, the child is saying through his/her apathy, “My parents want me to do such and such, but nobody can control me. I just will not dowhat they want.” Deal with this behavior in the same way as if he/she was angry because that is exactly what this form of apathy is.

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The world outside has not become less real just because the prisoner cannot see it.” J.R.R. Tolkien

Recently, several officers from the Sheriff’s Department of a large Georgia city talked with our staff concerning the drugs they were seeing emerge on the streets. As they spoke about what they were witnessing and how drugs were being made, I was struck by one of the officer’s comments: “We will never be able to do anything but play catch up. People who want to use drugs will always be ahead of us.”

What a sad commentary, but how true it is that individuals who want to get high, will make every effort to do so, often with that which is most accessible. So what is a parent to do? How are we to know what might emerge next or how can we protect our children? Think how each decade has represented a new era in drugs. In the 50’s it was alcohol, the 60’s marijuana, the 70’s psychotropic drugs like LSD and mushrooms, the 80’s cocaine and crack, the 90’s chemically made drugs like ecstasy (MDMA), and since 2000, it has been a litany of new chemically concocted drugs. A stimulant that is making much of the news lately is Crystal Methamphetamine. One of the officers, when talking about Crystal Meth made the comment that in the 80’s he had thought crack would be the death of this country. Now he would say that Crystal Meth has become far worse than crack ever was. What is even more disturbing is that people are now using fruit flavoring to entice and attract new users.

In looking back over the decades, we as parents must realize that this trend is a natural progression. The economic concept of supply and demand does an effective job of teaching us what we should expect would happen. Think of it this way:

• There is a demand/desire to get high for the following reasons:
  • Trying something new
  • Experiencing peer pressure
  • Associating with undesirable peers
  • Filling a void that is in their lives
• The problem, however, is that there are laws/constraints concerning the drug supply
  • So people seek ways to avoid the laws/constraints

For many individuals, since scarcity exists, they seek that which is the most available…what is accessible and easy to get their hands on. Is it any wonder then that people get high by ingesting nutmeg or abusing what is in the medicine cabinet, get drunk and overdose on over the counter drugs like Nyquil, huff gasoline fumes, or use everyday items to make Crystal Meth? There are reasons that Sudafed is locked behind the pharmacy counter and you can only buy a limited quantity of batteries at a store.

There are a number of explanations for why consumers try products, but what is obviously different about drugs is that they alter reality, but after that initial experience, the, “first time” can never be regained, so new drugs are abused to regain that high. A current cultural trend is to see chemical drugs, taken from what is not illegal, but made into something that alters reality and provides a new experience.

The data we keep here at the Paul Anderson Youth Home reinforces the drug trends and the age that usage occurs. During the last 10 years, our young men have gone from mainly abusing alcohol and marijuana in their later teenage years, to using prescription drugs like Oxycontin, Ritalin, and Vicodin at earlier ages. These are our current statistics for when drug usage begins:

• 82% by age 14
• 63% by age 13
• 44% by age 12
• 10% by age 10

(Our youngest drug use occurred at age 7)

The supply is available at earlier ages, and what is being supplied is different than it used to be. For most of our young men, while the first drug remains marijuana, the escalation moves very quickly from there to what is most available or what can be supplied with the least resistance like cough syrup and prescription drugs.

Could the contents of your medicine cabinet or your neighbors’ be ways that a child could get high? Look at what is around your home, change your perspective on what is being abused. As Tolkien said, “the world outside has not become less real just because the prisoner cannot see it.”

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A study recently published in the medical journal, Addiction confirms what many have observed for years. Teens and young adults who smoke marijuana regularly, grossly underachieve in life. This breakthrough research studied the progress of approximately 1900 teens for 10 years and found that regular marijuana users were three times more likely to be unemployed or drop out of school than non users. The evidence of marijuana’s negative effect on young people is so overwhelming that the scientist who conducted the research pronounced that marijuana is “the drug for life’s future losers.”

Here’s why. Teens who have the intelligence and motivation to go to college or technical school who begin smoking marijuana regularly, almost always abandon these aspirations for something less rigorous and demanding. The research is clear regarding marijuana’s affect on the brain and behavior. Cannabis impairs memory, motivation, and something called executive functioning, which involves the ability to organize tasks, control impulses and set priorities. In other words, marijuana users adjust their life’s goals and priorities downward to accommodate their impaired condition. It’s hard to smoke weed 3-4 times per week and remain disciplined enough to get up early and work hard and attain the grades necessary to succeed in something difficult. So marijuana users are frequently unemployed or under employed in vocations that are less mentally challenging. Unfortunately it isn’t until they quit that they realize that marijuana has robbed them of the life they really wanted.

If you smoke weed and can’t seem to get ahead in life, talk with someone who can be honest and objective with you. Quitting cannabis is very hard for the first 2-4 weeks. One young man said it was like watching black and white TV—no color, no joy, no excitement. But slowly the color comes back as the brain learns to feel happy again without marijuana. Its difficult and you probably can’t do it alone, so get some help. Your future depends on it.

Dr. Drew Edwards | All rights reserved

Reference:
Patton, G.C., et al. (2007) Trajectories of adolescent alcohol and cannabis use into young adulthood. Addiction, 102(4):607-615.

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