No School and No Parents at Home?

Summer Months Provide Youth with Opportunities to Start Abusing Drugs

School’s out and there is a feeling of freedom in the air. For some teens this means spending time with old friends and meeting new ones. For others this means no adult supervision and plenty of opportunities to find and use drugs or alcohol. Statistics show that many of our teens are doing just that.

Every day during summer vacation, an average of 6,300 youth try marijuana for the first time. Twenty-four percent of teens drink alcohol for the first time during summer break. Unfortunately, for many, drug or alcohol abuse does not stop there.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, one in ten of our children aged 12 to 17 binge drink each month. Eighty-three percent of high school seniors state that it is “easy to get” marijuana, and nearly 40% of them got it and smoked it in 2005. In 2001, almost 3 million youths aged 12 to 17 had used prescription-type drugs nonmedically at least once in their lifetime.

All told, a full 50% of high school students have used an illegal drug by the time they graduate, more than 20% of them starting in eighth grade.

“Do you think drug dealers have missed the fact that school-aged children have plenty of free time during the summer?” questioned Ryan Thorpe, Director of Admissions at Narconon Arrowhead, one of the country’s leading drug and alcohol rehabilitation and education centers located in Canadian, Oklahoma. "Statistics show higher initial drug and alcohol use in the summer. The Drug Enforcement Agency reports increased sales of club drugs – most popular among teens and young adults – during the summer months, and marijuana availability increases because domestically grown plants flourish in the warmer months. This is a critical time for parents to educate themselves and their children on the dangers of drugs and addiction. That is why we are making the Healing Addicted Lives booklet available to parents at no charge. We want parents to truly understand how addiction occurs so they can use this knowledge to effectively educate their children on the problem."

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