Teen Drug Abuse Symptoms, Warning Signs, Risk Factors, Treatment

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Teen Drug Abuse (cont.)

Medical Author:

Roxanne Dryden-Edwards, MD

Dr. Roxanne Dryden-Edwards is an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist. She is a former Chair of the Committee on Developmental Disabilities for the American Psychiatric Association, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and Medical Director of the National Center for Children and Families in Bethesda, Maryland.

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Medical Editor:

William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR

Dr. Shiel received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Notre Dame. There he was involved in research in radiation biology and received the Huisking Scholarship. After graduating from St. Louis University School of Medicine, he completed his Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology fellowship at the University of California, Irvine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.

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What are some adolescent drug use statistics?

In the U.S., about 3,000 teens smoke their first tobacco cigarette each day. About one-third of those adolescents become daily smokers. However, teen tobacco use generally continues has been declining since 2002.
Facts regarding underage drinking in the United States indicate that in 2008, 16% of eighth graders and 29% of 10th graders engaged in that behavior.
In 2008, the percentage of 12th-grade adolescents who have used any illicit drug except marijuana in the past month was about 25%, a decrease since 1997, when it was 30%.
As of 2010, about 30% of 10th-graders used marijuana in the past year. More than two-thirds of 10th graders said they could easily gain access to that drug.
In 2010, almost 3% of 12th graders had used cocaine in the past year, 8% had used the opiate Vicodin, 5% had used inhalants, nearly 5% had used "Ecstasy," and about 1.5% had used anabolic steroids.

What are the dangerous effects of drug use in teens?

Here are just a few of the many dangerous effects of drug use in adolescents:

Drugs of any kind decreases teens' ability to pay attention.
The younger a person is when they begin using drugs the more likely they are to develop a substance-abuse problem and the more likely they are to relapse into drug abuse when trying to quit.
Juveniles who use drugs are more likely to have unprotected sex, sex with a stranger, as well as to engage in sexual activity at all. This, in turn, puts them at risk for pregnancy, rape commission or victimization, and for sexually transmitted diseases.
Substance use can cause or mask other emotional problems, like anxiety, depression, mood swings, or hallucinations (for example, hearing or seeing things). Either of those illnesses can result in death by suicide or homicide.
Anabolic steroids have been associated with impotence in boys and men, clitoral enlargement in girls and women, as well as baldness, stunted growth, heart attacks, strokes, liver disease, cancer, acne and infections, including HIV/AIDS in both sexes.
Depending on how the body takes in and processes each kind of drug, substances of abuse can affect virtually every one of the body's systems. Examples of this include permanent brain damage associated with inhalants, heart attack or stroke from stimulants, halted breathing from sedatives. Any of these problems can result in death.