YOUNG TEENS TRYING BOOZE AND DRUGS

Problem Parenting and Peers' Behaviour Are Major Factors

The odds of adolescents getting drunk and using drugs are relatively
high if they see their parents as constantly nagging them, Statistics
Canada's first national study of alcohol and drug use among 12- to
15-year-olds shows.

Nearly half of the adolescents surveyed reported they'd had at least
one drink. Nearly a quarter admitted they'd been drunk at least once.
One in five confessed to having smoked marijuana.

The younger adolescents were not asked about hallucinogens - including
mushrooms, ecstasy and LSD - but 11 per cent of teens age 14 and 15
reported having tried them.

The average age at which respondents said they had their first drink
was 12.4.

The average age at which they first got drunk was 13.2.

The average age for first-time marijuana use was 13.1.

And the average age for first experimenting with hallucinogens was
13.8.

"Experimenting with alcohol and drugs in adolescence is fairly
common," said co-author Dave Haans of Statistics Canada's research
data centre at the University of Toronto.

"One of the other ways at looking at our figures is the majority of
adolescents in our survey engaged in no substance use. It's a matter
of seeing the glass half full or half empty."

The study found that the behaviour of an adolescent's peers was the
strongest factor in whether he or she drank or tried drugs.

But it also found that hostile parenting styles - characterized by
nagging, inconsistent enforcement of rules, threats and anger - have
an impact.

Only young people whose parents had a negative or hostile parenting
style were found to have significantly high odds of drinking to
intoxication or drug use. The odds of being drunk and engaging in drug
use increased by a factor of about 1.1 for every point increase in the
study's hostile-parenting scale.

But the study cautions against drawing any conclusions about cause and
effect.

"The causal direction of the relationship between hostile parenting
and substance use cannot be inferred," it says.

"It is possible that the parents' way of dealing with the adolescent
may have changed following problem behaviours such as alcohol or drug
use."

The researchers also could not explain why the odds of using drugs
were nearly double for young adolescents in stepparent families
compared with those in traditional two-parent families.

"We didn't find the same relationship about alcohol use. We're not
entirely certain as to why that may be the case," Haans said.

The survey bucked a trend found in other studies that suggest
high-risk behaviours might occur when young people feel stressed and
seek comfort, relief, or escape through drug use.

When other influences in the teens' lives were considered, the
Statistics Canada researchers did not find a relationship between drug
use and emotional problems. And the study found that the odds of being
drunk in the past year were lower for adolescents reporting emotional
problems.

There was little difference between the usage patterns of kids living
in rural and urban settings, a fact that surprised lead author Tina
Hotton.

"I think that there's a myth that drug use is an urban problem," she
said.

Hotton was also surprised that there didn't appear to be a gender gap.
Girls were as likely to experiment as boys.

But David Wolfe, a specialist in child psychology and child abuse at
the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, found no
surprise there.

While girls once lagged behind boys in illicit behaviours such as drug
use and smoking, that's no longer the case, he said:

"Girls are clearly catching up."

The data were collected in 1998-99 as part of a national long-term
survey of children and teens.

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*What the Teens Said

42% of 12- to 15-year-olds reported that they had consumed at least
one drink of alcohol - a bottle of beer or wine cooler, or a glass of
wine - at some point in their lives. By age 15, the figure was 66%.

22% (more than one-fifth) said they had been drunk at least once.
Among 15-year-olds, 44% said they had been drunk.

19% (about one-fifth) of 12- to 15-year-olds reported having smoked
marijuana. Among 15-year-olds, the figure rose to 38%.

12.4 years old was the average age at which adolescents reported
having their first drink (with only a slight difference between boys
and girls). The average age of being drunk for the first time was just
over 13 years.

Glue-sniffing began at an average age of just over 12 years. For other
drugs, including marijuana and hallucinogens, the average age of
first-time use was between 13.1 and 13.8.

The study was based on data from 4,296 adolescent respondents age 12
to 15 who participated in the 1998-99 National Longitudinal Survey of
Children and Youth.

Source - Statistics Canada