To think drug taking among teens is at epidemic levels

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Posting for traffic.

This is based on observations and conversations with my teen DC, teacher friends and other parents. It seems like drugs are cheaper and more available than ever before and schools and parents struggling to cope with the fallout. According to my DC getting hold of drugs via social media is as as easy as ordering pizza. Back in my day kids were smoking cigarettes behind the bike shed whereas today they are more likely smoking weed or taking legal highs. Drug taking now seems to be accepted as the norm among teens but it is ruining lives and families.

I’m not sure if it is actually worse than ever before or perhaps I am just more aware. Maybe some of you have statistics I cannot find.

AIBU to think a lot more needs to be done about this?

Well, of course xanax is going to be around considering how many people 'have anxiety'.

I was a teenager in the 1980’s & drugs were very very easy to get hold of then.

I did lead a sheltered life, but am fairly certain there were drugs around in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s.

Contemporaries of mine died under circumstances connected with drug use. There was a drug dealer outside my school, in a nice leafy market town. I'm in my 50s.

As a parents, these things worry you more. You feel more fear because your life encompasses more than the bit you have control over. But in those days other people were parents.

I took shedloads of drugs back in the 90s. They were available everywhere and anywhere. I used to buy them from bouncers and nightclub bosses and bar staff as well as friends and acquaintances.

I don't think it's any worse now than it was back then. People are just more aware because of the internet thank fuck it wasn't around when I was a teen

Stats suggest drug use is much lower than when I was a teen (1990s).

I smoked weed and took speed before I could drink. It was everywhere. MDMA, avid and mushrooms were harder to get hold of - I had to wait until I was in sixth form in the nearest town to get hold of them

Everybody I knew took drug every weekend as a teenager. I can’t imagine how anybody my age got to 18 without even trying weed - it would have taken conscious effort to avoid it. I grew up in a small village in Sussex, so it’s not like I was in some inner city.

I remember my mum telling me when ai was 16 that “nobody took drugs in the 60s, not like now”. She was wrong then, and you’re wrong now OP. You were just sheltered I’m afraid!

The downside of it now being much harder for teens to buy alcohol or get served in pubs underage, is that they've turned to drugs instead, as they're cheaper and easier to get hold of.

According to my teens, dealers just post in a group chat to say they've got stuff. Easy as that.

It was rife in the 80's when I was a teen, I smoked a shitload of weed and then never touched it again when my teens had ended.

Dd and her friends are way more sensible than I was but she has said she knows a few that do drugs.

So from where I'm standing it's less common as is drinking. The teens I know drink maybe three times a year.

I would never want it legalised as I’ve seen first hand the destruction and devastation drugs have had on my family. I would not want that inflicted on more people which it would if it became legal.

I have definitely seen articles suggesting drug taking is down from, say, 2010 levels- but that doesn't mean that taking drugs isn't still very common.

I was a teen in the 2000s, as the internet, social media and mobile phones were becoming more prevalent. I do think these may have made getting hold of drugs easier. Before it was made illegal, in sixth form, some of my friends would buy M-Cat online and it was easier to buy than alcohol! Aged 16-18, I would say there was M-Cat and weed at every party, and I could certainly have gotten hold of harder drugs if I'd wanted to.

At uni, MDMA was everywhere, and coke was pretty easy to get too. We also used to take Valium to help us sleep after taking coke, or to help with the effects of a come-down. Ketamine was really common too, and I think a bit worse than the others as it seems more addictive.

Anyway, I'm not saying this is ideal, but most of the people I know who were taking these things as teens or at uni are now successful and productive adults. I do think they can make existing mental health problems worse, and the people I know who ended up having "drug problems" usually had histories of mental health issues in their teens.

However, since graduating, talking to other people in my age group, it does seem like a bit of a friendship group thing, and perhaps more common in rural areas where there is less to do? Plenty of people aren't touching these drugs at all- ever. So I think if your children are in a group/school/town where this stuff is common, it will feel like it's everywhere, when in reality, it's not.

Part of me is in favour of regulation, because I have seen people who've ended up in hospital because their MDMA or Coke was cut with something nasty. Also, I do think, in general, these things are less harmful than alcohol. There are a lot of ethical issues with drug production, which could be tackled if drugs were legalized.

However, with drugs like M-CAT, I did see a difference in circulation when they were made illegal, and I do think drugs can have really harmful affects on a minority of individuals, and in some cases there is a big risk of overdose.

I also think part of the "fun" of drugs at uni was the thrill of doing something illegal, a sort of feeling of rebellion and being "in" with a sort of secret club. So if less dangerous drugs like weed were made legal, we might have sought out something harder?

I was a teen in the 80s and have always been part of a social circle that commonly used drugs. I would definitely say that it is more commonplace now amongst teens and much easier to get hold of. The teenage generation of today also have parents that grew up themselves in an active drug culture whereas when I was a teen most parents and those of my peers were generally naive about most drugs.

I'd like to see the whole lot legalised for safety reasons let alone the saving in the policing costs of prohibition.

I agree.

Coffee shops like in Amsterdam for weed and doctors/pharmacists for the rest on prescription. Just like any other pharmaceutical...

You only have to look at Mexico and USA (opiod addiction) that the war on drugs is hopelessly lost.

Part of the human experience is to also want to have altered states of being, whether religion, booze, drugs etc.

... never mind the devastation to the environment in the Amazon etc. from mass dumping of chemicals to make cocaine.

Acid seems to be seen as a step too far and while before was a recreational drug, it's now seen as more akin to crack or heroin.

See as akin to crack or heroin?!

Why? By whom?

Generally drug use is dependent on social class, education level and availability of money. Statistically (depending on where you live) it's down because overall kids are more educated to the effects, more comfortable talking about it and more inclined to see it as harmless experimentation that's a natural part of adolescent, which leads to less shunning, thrill seeking, etc.
Obviously there are exceptions to this like the opioid epidemic in the US which is driven by poverty.
I think the problem is not that there is more drug use, but that you have teens willing to talk about it with you.

Drugs are on the increase I think because teens now have a particularly bleak life ahead of them.

Drugs are a escape from the impending unrewarding harsh reality that’s about to hit them, where they are thrown on life’s scrap heap before they begin.

No.

Have worked with teenagers for 12 years and nothing changes, just the drugs they use, not the amount of kids using them.

Drugs are a escape from the impending unrewarding harsh reality that’s about to hit them, where they are thrown on life’s scrap heap before they begin.

Kursk, have you ever thought about motivational speaking?

Weed (well resin) was very much the norm where I grew up in NI. That was in the 90s. At university in the noughties, mdma, weed, ketamine and cocaine were all commonplace and freely available, though not through random strangers on SM. The legal highs seem new though and they do worry me a little bit, as every time I see someone on tv who takes them, they look utterly fucked up.

At school in the 90s it was pretty commonplace. Lots of people smoking weed at 16 and then once in 6th form moving onto pills.

Then at uni again totally commonplace. In halls I was on a floor of 12 girls and I think about 9 of us took pills and had been doing for some time. Some of them had taken acid at 14 or so.

The big difference now is the actual substances.

Nah. Many (many) decades ago there were at least 10 dealers active just at my rather small, posh, parochial school. I could get a hold of anything I wanted, extremely cheaply. Heroin was common. Coke and speed were everywhere. Really potent acid abounded. Honestly though what was probably worse long-term was the cigarettes. 90% of the kids I knew had a pack a day + habit by about 14.

By the time my kids were in high school the heroin and coke seemed to have largely dried up, and the big things were weed, mushrooms and prescription pills like adderall. Ecstasy and weak acid at parties. Not much seems to have changed since then really. It’s definitely far tamer than in my time.

Drugs were very prevalent in the 90s. My generation did drugs like ecstasy, acid, speed and ketamine. Plus loads of weed and hash. We didn't touch coke or heroin, that was what older, desperately uncool junkies did.

I totally agree about drugs being legalised. The drugs that are being used now are stronger, less pure and more dangerous as a direct result of their manufacture and distribution being under the control of criminal gangs rather than legislated.

Plus - I have no idea what they are these days! I can't pass on what I learnt about staying safe as there are so many legal highs and newly synthesised drugs about.

I don't have teenagers so I might be way off - but it seems to me that drug culture is not as prevalent as the 90s. There were lots of different youth movements / scenes that were very obviously drug fuelled.

I don't see that so much now. The current youth movement seems to be about gender identity and scoring hormones off the internet / your doctor, rather than getting munted on a cocktail of illegal substances and dancing to rave music in a field for three days, but perhaps I'm wrong.

I grew up in a working class northern town and the main drugs of choice back in the 80s were solid cannabis and speed. Nobody did coke, pills were only just coming onto the scene and unless you were clubbing in Manchester you didn’t really bother with those either.

I moved to London in my mid 20s and it all changed.. Coke was freely available in the industry I worked in, and most people smoked green with solid now a rarity.

I’m now in Devon and not a lot has changed from London. Even the prices are pretty much the same although the quality is poorer.

I actually think kids are more clued up these days about drugs then previous generations which lowers the amount of deaths but I don't think the level of drug taking is 'epidemic' many young people (including myself) have experimented with drugs and I suspect that will always be the case.

I heard there were some drugs around in the 60's, too.

Go further back in time, and you could legally get some of the drugs that are illegal now. Here in the US, until 1930 you could buy a "soothing syrup" for babies that had morphine in it.