The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death among young people between the ages of 16 and 19. The Center points to the combination of a lack of experience on the road and the use of marijuana and other substances as leading to tragic results when these teens get behind the wheel.

According to a NIDA Monitoring the Future survey, more than 12 percent of high school seniors admitted to driving under the influence of marijuana in the two weeks prior to participating in the survey in 2008. In the state of Maryland, the 2007 State of Maryland Adolescent Survey found that 11.1 percent of licensed adolescent drivers got behind the wheel on three or more occasions. Another 10 percent reported driving while under the influence of a drug other than marijuana.

It may seem confusing for a teen to understand why driving under the influence of a drug can be dangerous. Even teachers and parents may be at a loss to understand the associated impact, given the intensive scrutiny applied to drinking and driving. Much like alcohol, however, drugs can alter perception, attention, balance, cognition, coordination and reaction time, as well as other functions necessary to safely operate a motor vehicle.

Marijuana especially is often understood in its relationship between driving and use. Too often, users will associate its risk as nothing more than driving with a cigarette clasped between the fingers. What may not be understood is that unlike cigarettes, marijuana contains THC, which affects areas of the brain that control the movements of the body, including coordination, balance, memory and judgment.

Extensive research into this area, including 60 experimental studies, shows that behavioral and cognitive skills in relation to operating a motor vehicle are impaired in a dose-dependent fashion when THC is present in the blood. In addition, marijuana plays on the driver’s attentiveness, perception of time and speed and the ability to draw on lessons learned in past experiences. In other words, it can turn someone who has been driving for two years into a first-time driver.
Experts in the field continue to urge more research into the relationship between drugged driving and disastrous results. They also encourage lawmakers and those in education to develop materials to inform new drivers of the risks for themselves and others on the road if they use drugs and then drive.
 

The study, which examined 5,500 seventh and eighth graders at 16 middle schools in California, also found that some of the factors that influenced the risk of substance abuse varied by race and ethnicity. For example, personal factors contributed to the risk of substance abuse among Hispanic adolescents, such as their ability to say no and their perception of the negative consequences of drinking, smoking, and drug use.

Asian teens’ lower risk of substance abuse was tied to the same personal factors, in addition to their respect for the parents and their family members’ and peers’
lower rates of substance abuse.

Regina A. Shih, Ph.D., and her colleagues at the RAND Corporation said that the study highlights issues that could be used in substance abuse prevention programs in middle schools. Dr. Shih said that most interventions are not culturally tailored, so focusing on specific risk factors that are present in certain races and ethnicities could help better prevent substance abuse. For example, focusing on how to resist peer pressure could be helpful for Hispanic teens, while promoting positive communication among family members could help maintain lower substance abuse rates for Asian teens.

Dr. Shih noted that they aren’t suggesting that these targeted efforts be offered to only students of those ethnicities, but that they could be broadly applied to help reach a higher number of students.

In the study, 22 percent of students said they had tried alcohol, 10 percent said they had smoked cigarettes, and 7 percent said they had used marijuana. Among Hispanics, 26 percent had tried alcohol, compared to 21 percent of black students, 18 percent of white students, and about 10 percent of Asian students.

Hispanic students had the highest probability of substance abuse and Asian students had the lowest probability, even after accounting for factors such as gender and family backgrounds.

Shih and her team hope to use this sample to continue to examine adolescents over time to see which factors initiate or worsen substance abuse.

Source: Science Daily, Hispanic Kids Show Greater Risk of Substance Use, Study Suggests, September 1, 2010

A new study is raising concern about the ever-younger age in which young girls are hitting puberty. The study was led by Dr. Frank Biro of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and it highlights the trend of puberty ages trending downward.

The study found that about 10 percent of white girls and 23 percent of black girls had begun developing breasts at the age of 7. When these results are compared to a study from 1997, the trend is disturbing. In 1997, 5 percent of white girls and 15 percent of black girls had begun puberty at the age of 7. The results were published in the medical journal Pediatrics.

The study examined 1,200 girls aged 7 and 8 in three U.S. cities: Cincinnati, New York and San Francisco. The examination revealed that about 18 percent of white girls and 43 percent of black girls had entered puberty at age 8. In 1997, only 11 percent of white girls had entered puberty at age 8. The percentage of black girls entering puberty at age 8 stayed the same.

An additional study published in Pediatrics raises additional concerns related to young girls entering puberty at an earlier age. The study, led by Dr. Mildred Maisonet of Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, examined girls in Great Britain, reporting that overweight girls are more likely to enter puberty earlier.

Experts aren’t sure what causes the earlier development of puberty, but Maisonet’s results may be one factor. Additional concerns include chemicals, such as BPA found in plastic, or chemicals found in fertilizers, according to CBS News Medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton.

Young girls who enter puberty before their peers may endure teasing, along with a higher expectation of psychological maturity. There is physical danger as well. Studies have shown that girls who enter puberty early are at a higher risk of developing breast and uterine cancer due to a longer period of time spent menstruating.

Doctors caution that early puberty should not be considered the “new normal.” Parents who notice their children showing signs of puberty at an early age should consult their pediatrician.
 

Even more dangerous is the misconception by young adults that chewing tobacco isn’t harmful. Many users are also unaware that it can create a lifelong nicotine addiction or cause life-threatening cancers.

Commonly associated with professional baseball players or as something people used in the past, chewing tobacco can create a nicotine addiction as early as middle school that can quickly become a smoking habit. In addition, the chance that a young user will remain a lifetime user of chewing tobacco is high. Chewing tobacco is gaining more awareness as stories emerge into the spotlight, like the death from oral cancer of major league baseball player Bill Tuttle.

More than 6 million people in the U.S. use snuff daily. Experts say teens need a consistent, strong message that chewing tobacco is very dangerous, and some are calling for new taxes or bans on the product. The usage rate among white males in the young-adult age group continues to rise, with an average starting age of 12 years old.

Teens and their parents may also be unaware that keeping a “dip,” or wad of chewing tobacco, in your lip for a half-hour delivers nicotine levels matching three cigarettes. According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), some people become so dependent on the nicotine that they even sleep with a wad of chewing tobacco in their mouth.

Chewing tobacco provides a “buzz” similar to smoking, and the nicotine effects happen quickly. However, the NCI warns of serious health effects from chewing tobacco, including gums receding from the teeth, mouth sores and leukoplakias or erythroplakias – white or red sores that have a high likelihood of becoming cancerous.

Cancer of the lips, throat, mouth and voicebox is also a serious concern. Nearly 30,000 new oral cancer cases are identified annually. This type of cancer is fast-moving, extremely deformative and difficult to treat. Some estimates say only about 50 percent of people with this type of cancer will survive. Many young people have died from chewing tobacco-related cancers before reaching adulthood.

Socially, the habit can be hard to kick because teens continue to believe it isn’t harmful and they often see professional athletes chewing tobacco. Signs that may reveal a young person is using chewing tobacco include stained teeth, sores in the mouth, brown-colored saliva and breath odor.

Parents, physicians and school officials are encouraged to warn teens of the dangers of chewing tobacco. This may be most effective when photos of physical deformities resulting from chewing are used, and those of mouth cancers. Quitting the habit is very similar to stopping smoking, and users must overcome a difficult nicotine dependence. Providing treatment and support similar to quitting smoking may help teens end a potentially life-threatening habit.

According to a recent Science Daily release, early intervention for those youth with delinquency issues could help to prevent later development of crime, alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and risky sexual behaviors. This has been found to be especially true for disadvantaged youth.

A recent study into this topic examined the influence that delinquent behavior can have on an individual when it is exercised in late childhood. The findings from this study – which examined 800 youth from low- compared to middle-income backgrounds – found that those from low-income backgrounds were twice as likely to report early sex, many by age 11. They were also more likely to report early delinquency, by age 10.

There was a flip when it came to alcohol use, however, as that was more common among youth from middle-income backgrounds. In fact, they were 1.5 times more likely to report use by age 10. The individuals who showed early and frequent involvement with any of these behaviors also showed an increase in long-term crime, AUDs and risky sexual behaviors into adulthood.

The outcomes of studies such as this latest one into this area help to identify early indications of risky behaviors, as well as conditions that increase the likelihood among individuals. As a result, intervention programs can be better designed to address the real-world challenges these youth face so as to prevent bigger problems later.
 

As these ads have been shown to be too effective in driving teenage consumption of alcohol, it was important that their use be limited and their audience be strictly those of legal consumption age. According to a recent Science Daily piece, youth exposure to such advertising in magazines has decreased.

This decline has been a strong 48 percent between 2001 and 2008, as captured and reported by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY). This organization is a division of the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The organization found that 325 alcohol brands advertised in magazines in 2008, yet only 16 of those brands accounted for half of the ad space captured in publications that were more likely to be read or seen by youths than adults when measured on a per capita basis. At the top of the list were brands like Patron Silver Tequila, Jim Beam Bourbon Whiskey and Absolut Vodka.

A voluntary standard was adopted in 2003 by alcohol companies pledging to not place ads for their products in magazines that had a readership of 30 percent or more represented by teens or youths. While the standard is important, it seems to have had little effect on the percentage of youth who are being exposed from advertising that is placed in magazines intended for this crowd.

When it was measured in 2008, CAMY found that 78 percent of exposure for youth was in advertising in magazines intended for the younger population. Alcohol manufacturers were more heavily advertising to individuals not able to legally purchase their product. The good news is there were a relatively small number of brands still taking part in this type of advertising.
 

In the 2009 Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s report on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 24 percent of students participated in heavy drinking. A recent study explored the different approaches to parenting styles and how they impact adolescents’ drinking behaviors (Bahr & Hoffmann, 2010).

The study compared four types of parenting behaviors: authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful, to see how the affected drinking behaviors in a large sample size of adolescents was affected by parenting style. The researchers used a multistage probability sample to choose 4,983 students that were enrolled in grades 6-12 to complete the survey.

The survey included questions about drinking and students’ perceptions of their parents’ discipline styles. The drinking questions asked the students about their alcohol use in the last 30 days, identifying behaviors as no use, light use (less than five drinks in one sitting), or heavy use (five or more drinks in one sitting).

Parenting styles identified on a support and control continuum. High support, high control displayed an authoritative style. A combination of low support, high control exhibited authoritarian parenting, while high support, low control was identified as indulgent. Low support, low control parenting was labeled neglectful parenting.

The researchers also measured religiosity in each student, using frequency and importance to determine its role; and peer alcohol use by asking how many out of four best friends drank.

The study used structural equation modeling to estimate how the past 30 days of alcohol use were affected by parenting style, religiosity, and peer alcohol use.

The results of the study show that adolescents with parents who used an authoritative style of parenting were less likely to drink heavily than the students from other types of parenting households. They were also less likely to have close friends who used alcohol.

The researchers were surprised to discover that there was no effect on light drinking based on a student having authoritative parents. However, there was a difference in this measurement seen between authoritative parenting and neglectful parenting.

The study’s results may be limited by the use of a cross-sectional design that does not examine the cause-and-effect relationship between the variables. In addition, the information was all gathered by using self-report.

The results of the study highlight the importance of parental involvement with students to help them deter drinking and also lessen the impact that drinking peers may have on their decisions.
 

Known as CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy represents a class of therapies for treating addictions and mental disorders, with each technique focused on the outcome of changing a person’s thoughts toward a behavior. When a shift in thought toward the addiction occurs, it creates a change in feelings and attitudes, regardless of outside forces the person cannot control.

Robert Hahn, Ph.D., summarized the successes of CBT with adolescents in a report published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. Hahn, representing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that not only does CBT show positive results for adolescents with trauma-induced mental disorders, but the therapy may also lessen the chances that a teen will participate in harmful behaviors later in life.

CBT is based on a set of defining principles: first, a person’s thinking leads to their actions and feelings, not outside elements. A person can choose to change their thoughts toward addiction independent of other factors. A second principle of CBT is that therapists guide the patient toward articulating their thoughts, feelings and goals toward recovery – thus creating a team approach that is unique for the individual. Third, the therapy is educational-based, meaning the client is taught new ways to cope and react to stressors that trigger problematic responses.

For parents, CBT is different than traditional methods of learning. Instead of the standard rule-oriented environment and consequences for bad choices, CBT takes into consideration that teens with personality and behavioral problems may have a distorted perception of acceptable actions. If the teen shows inappropriately aggressive behaviors, CBT can include teaching positive statements that encourage the teen that they have the tools to solve a problem. The therapy can also encourage a teen to ask themselves about all their options in a stressful situation.

For optimum success, a teen must be at a level of cognitive development in which they can analyze a situation and accept self-instruction. A 2006 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 11 studies using CBT with children and teens, all showed positive changes toward depression, the extent to which teens externalized or internalized situations, anxiety levels and stress disorders.

Additional researchers, including Mark Reinecke and peers at Northwestern University, have also praised CBT for treating teens with anxiety problems and depression. The therapy is also used in the Friends Program, a series of workshops for parents, teachers and therapists held across the globe for treating anxiety among young people.

Professor Paula Barrett, University of Queensland, a key researcher into the field of CBT for children and adolescents and Friends Program practitioner, describes CBT as establishing a sense of “emotional resilience” that helps teens recover from anxiety disorders or stress-induced problems and lays a foundation for preventing problems like depression when they become adults.

As further studies continue to show the promise of CBT in working with teens with psychological problems, the therapy may remain a preventative measure for helping teens avoid drug and alcohol addictions and lifelong depression.
 

Under federal law, inhalants are not classified as controlled substances mainly because many household cleaning products or aerosol cans can be used as inhalants, making it difficult for the justice system to authorize substance abuse treatment for inhalant abusers. Currently, Massachusetts family members, physicians, and law enforcement have the capacity to petition the courts for substance abusers to receive court-mandated alcohol or substance abuse treatment in state-approved rehabilitation facilities. Court-ordered treatment usually involves substance abuse rehabilitation residency for 30–90 days, depending on the severity of the substance abuse and its related problems. However, the existing statute overlooks the need for rehabilitation for inhalant abusers whose substance abuse dependencies and addictions tend to go untreated.

Inhalant abuse, which involves sniffing or inhaling toxic fumes from chemical liquid, spray, and gas products to achieve a high, is most common among 12–17 year olds. In 2007, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) estimated that 1 million teenagers were dependent on or abusing inhalants that year. Around 17.2% of adolescents who abuse drugs admit that inhalants were their first substance of abuse. Because inhalants do not gain as much notice as illicit substances do in the eyes of the law, inhalant abuse—or “huffing”—can often serve as a gateway drug for more harmful substance abuse problems. Inhalants can create anything from a small high to cardiac arrest when inhaled, and can even lead to death; essentially, there are no safe levels of abuse when children decide to inhale dangerous toxic vapors.

With passage of this new state law, Rep. Murphy hopes to bring more focus on this serious problem and assist local families who are affected by inhalant abuse get the help they need. Inhalant abuse has the capacity to cause severe adverse affects including respiratory and cardiac problems, depression, uncharacteristic behavior, anger, aggressiveness, and mood swings. SAMHSA has reported on relationships found between inhalant abuse by teenagers and major depressive episodes and delinquent behavior. Families affected by inhalant use in their households may feel powerless against preventing their addicted teenagers from accessing everyday products in the kitchen, bathroom, or garage that can be used for inhalant abuse. With instatement of Rep. Murphy’s bill, the courts can now have the ability to intervene during these crucial moments for teenagers and provide them with the treatment they need, and hopefully prevent further growth of this risky behavior among youths.

Source: Boston.com, Murphy Touts Passage of Inhalant Bill, August 3, 2010

However, a new study suggests that there is no “safe” level of drinking for teenagers, as researchers at Northumbria University have discovered that teen binge drinking affects prospective memory, or remembering to perform an intended action, such as remembering to meet a friend at a certain time, remembering a doctor’s appointment, or remembering to take medicine. This type of memory is essential to everyday life, as failures in prospective memory can negatively affect one’s professional life, relationships, and health.

Binge drinking is defined as having five or more drinks in one drinking session at least twice a week. Studies have found that this type of excessive drinking is extremely popular among those between the ages of 16 and 24. Research has shown that 44 percent of college students binge drink every two weeks, and 19 percent binge drink more than three times per week. With the prevalence of binge drinking among young people, it’s important to understand the impact of alcohol consumption on the still-developing brain.

Researchers led by Dr. Tom Heffernan tested the ability of 50 university students to remember a series of tasks. They were shown a 10-minute video clip of a shopping district and were asked to remember to follow a series of instructions when they saw specific locations. Of the 50 participants, 21 were considered binge drinkers. Teens who used other drugs like marijuana, tobacco, and ecstasy were excluded from the study, as were those who had consumed alcohol within the last 48 hours.

The study found that the non-binging participants remembered far more of the instructions than the binge drinkers, suggesting that excessive drinking may interfere with the development of the teenage brain. The study also found that binge drinkers didn’t perceive themselves to have poor memory recall, suggesting that teen drinkers are unaware of the damage that may be occurring.

Dr. Heffernan noted that their study underscores that there are no “safe” levels of drinking for teenagers, as the teenage brain is still developing. 

Sources: Northumbria University, No Safe Level: First Study to Show Teenage Binge Drinkers Harm Abilities in Later Life, July 29, 2010

Thomas M. Heffernan, The Impact of Excessive Alcohol Use on Prospective Memory: A Brief Review, September 28, 2007