Do most Teenagers do drugs?

[Oslosunshine]

DD is 17. She was at a party last night and I got a call from her as it got shut down by the police. One of the girls at the party was taken to hospital in an ambulance after an overdose. Today I had a chat with the mum of the boy who’s party it was and she was, to be expected, incredibly frustrated as she had to fly back to deal with the fallout. Thankfully the police were only really fussed about the noise after the neighbours complained and nothing is being taken further.

However, this prompted me to speak to my DD about why drugs should be avoided and about being sensible etc. DD got very defensive and told me that everyone does drugs, ‘MDMA is safer than alcohol’ and lots more to that extent.

I was incredibly shocked- I know DD smokes (both cigarettes and weed) and whilst I would prefer her to stop, she’s 17 and like most of my peers, I did the same at her age. However, I knew absolutely nothing of the hard drugs and how common they are with her friends.

DH is also worried but sees it as an almost given. He went to a similar school in London to hers and was in a similar ‘scene’ when he was younger and confirms that it is very much the norm.

Mum of the party boy agreed that coke, ketamine, MDMA are all very normalised with their peers and thinks the best course of action is to educate them on dosages, rather than pleading with them to stop.

I feel so naive; I feel as if I have failed my daughter by bringing her up in this privileged inner city London environment where most of the DC have the money for these expensive drugs. But DH thinks it’s not our fault and that this happens everywhere. It certainly didn’t happen on this scale when I was growing up in a less privileged, more suburban area.

Is this normal for teenagers everywhere/ was I just incredibly sheltered growing up?

No of course not

@Oslosunshine I wouldn’t think of it like that. You can preach about the dangers of drug all you like but that just makes it seem more exciting. It’s not about failing to protect them. Unfortunately it’s normal to experiment at that age as it makes them look cool and image is everything to teenagers

My dd1 didn't do drugs as a teenager. In fact, she hated drugs. Years before she made a No smoking sign and put it in our house because I smoked😀
When she went off to uni she started to dabble in party drugs.
Party drugs led to her getting flung out of uni coming home.
Drugs took over her life and she ended up on cocaine and injecting heroin.
On her 3rd attempt at rehab, she managed to get clean and stay clean. She had plans to go back to uni 😪
If Dd2 EVER showed any interest in drugs I would come down on her so hard she would know what's hit her.
I still have the No Smoking Sign 20+ years later.😥

I went to an independent school in a city (not London), then Oxbridge. I'm 35 now.

Weed, MDMA/pills, ketamine and coke were all widely available and yes, people had the money to try them, but by no means everyone used them. I'd say perhaps 5% were really into drugs and maybe 50% didn't use drugs at all, with everyone else somewhere in between, eg just smoking weed at parties and maybe trying MDMA a couple of times.

To be honest, I probably fell into the 5% about 15 years ago and so did many of my close friends. I haven't used any drugs for years, and now have a successful professional career and am married with DC. The same is true for the vast majority of people I used to take drugs with.

But, there are definitely a few people I went to school with who were into hard drugs and who have difficult lives partly because of it. I know someone from that crowd who has struggled with heroin addiction, another one who has done time in prison.

Not sure how I'm going to broach the topic with my DC myself.

It is for my daughter (18 - London)'s group. There are groups that don't but hers and the majority do. There main limirtaion is lack of funds for things like coke etc, thankfully.

I don't like it (I didn't start party drugs til I was end of uni age and I tyhink more equipped to keep myself safe). But Im aware of what they do and impress upon them -

Stay together - don't leave a friend in trouble
Limit alcohol if you are taking drugs
If you are in any way worried about yourself or a friend call me or your Dad if not immediately urgent - or an ambulance if any doubt.

My DS is horrified - he's totally anti drugs and hasn't even had alcohol aged 16. But he is an outlier. My youngest will be into everything I'd say.

[quote Oslosunshine]@Pyri
Surely any teenager who really wanted to experiment would just ask one of their friends or classmates who they know are in the rave scene?[/quote]
How many teenagers know someone “on the rave scene”? I certainly didn’t so again, I think this is quite specific to your daughter and not a generalisation to all teens

The thing is I know that drug use doesn’t mean that my DD won’t do well in life at all. My DH and I both experimented, DH more so than me, and we’re both very lucky to have done well and be in a good place in life.

However, irrationally, I fear this will ruin her life. I can’t stop worrying.

MDMA IS safer than alcohol, just read any of Prof. Nutts ‘equasy’ work.

Party boys mum is right, education and harm reduction is a far better approach than ‘just say no’.

It is all dependent on your social circle. When I was younger I knew no-one who did drugs, anyone who did we thought was a loser.

Then I met someone and starting hanging around in their circle for about a year, where everyone did them. Took a while to work out they were indeed losers and reverted to another friendship group where again no-one did drugs. No one in college did them, and no-one in my first couple of jobs.

From what I hear from ds(17) he is experiencing similar. He tells me of some very small pockets in his school that do drugs, some are from former friendships groups he is no longer in, none of his current friends do drugs and he says the majority of kids in his school don't.

IME it only feels "most teenagers do drugs" if your teen is involved in those pockets, I hear this from other parents too. If ds was involved I would be doing my best to redirect him.

@ParkheadParadise
I’m so sorry. You sound like a brilliant, supportive mum. I hope you are doing well and taking care of yourself.

@HaggisBurger
That sounds familiar to what my DH described. Thank you, very reassuring.

No, I don't think all teenagers do this. I do think that it can be more of an issue amongst more affluent kids.

@JudyGemstone
Really? I will definitely look into that. It’s what people said at university and we all half heartedly believed it but if there is some actual truth behind that, that is bloody great.

@JudyGemstone

MDMA IS safer than alcohol, just read any of Prof. Nutts ‘equasy’ work.

Party boys mum is right, education and harm reduction is a far better approach than ‘just say no’.

I agree. It's often the kids whose parents have zero tolerance who leave others in trouble for fear of repercussions. For sure ease of access is a big thing and relatively cheap prices.

In saying that my DD will often hang out with her friends cooking amazing veggie feasts and watching Harry Potter - I feel that all is not lost and in some ways aged 18 the ket parties have reduced. That said, God knows what she will be like first year of uni ....

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61462-6/fulltext

Here’s the Lancet study

You don’t need to feel as though you’ve failed. You haven’t. I think that her friend’s mum is right: telling young people that something is bad or wrong and trying to frighten them away from it doesn’t work - whether that’s drugs or alcohol or sex. But what does work is talking to young people about how to do something more safely, making them aware of the risks and how to mitigate those risks, making it clear to them that if they or their friends do find themselves feeling unwell after taking drugs that they must contact you and call 999 and you won’t be angry with them for taking drugs and they won’t get into trouble at the hospital - because there are several high profile examples of senseless and avoidable recreational drug deaths caused because somebody’s friends were too scared to get help because they thought they’d all get into trouble.

I would say fewer of my son's peer group take them than mine did. His group don't, at the moment, and think the boy who recently got asked to leave 6th form for dealing weed in the toilets was a bit of an idiot. But that answers the question of where they are getting them from, everyone knows who you'd ask at school / college.

@Mamamia7962

No, neither of my children, who are now adults, did drugs in their teens.

My mother would probably swear that was the case with me but she'd be dead wrong.

Pretty much all of our friendship group did between 17-25. Mostly weed, mdma, coke.

Sorry that wasn’t the full paper:

www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News%20stories/dnutt-lancet-011110.pdf

I get very upset when I hear people sat that MDMA is safer than alcohol. Statistically, it may be true, but as someone who lost a friend to MDMA, that's pretty cold comfort. There are risks with alcohol, certainly, but that doesn't mean that MDMA is risk free.

I don’t think most teenagers can afford drugs or would have the faintest idea how
to go about buying them?

I’m sorry but I literally laughed out loud at this.

I grew up relatively middle class and by the time I was 16 I was smoking weed regularly, and had tried ecstasy, speed and acid.

'Mum of the party boy agreed that coke, ketamine, MDMA are all very normalised with their peers and thinks the best course of action is to educate them on dosages, rather than pleading with them to stop'

How depressing. Hard drug use in teens is not normal or widespread. The party boy mum is minimising massively. The best course of action is to not enable it by allowing them to host parties, by reporting drug use to the police and telling kids that drug taking kills. 'Educate them on doses' I mean fgs it's not like wine or vodka where you know your limits, there is no way of knowing what drug 'dosages' are.

I can't quite believe someone is suggesting reading anything Prof Nutter has to say, the bloke actually sacked for his crazy theories.

@19lottie82
Yes, surely it’s incredibly easy. You just ask the people at school who are in that crowd and there you go. Not that difficult.

@AlexaShutUp

I get very upset when I hear people sat that MDMA is safer than alcohol. Statistically, it may be true, but as someone who lost a friend to MDMA, that's pretty cold comfort. There are risks with alcohol, certainly, but that doesn't mean that MDMA is risk free.

But we know that the risks are exacerbated by combining MDMA with other substances or with alcohol and by drinking either too little or too much water. So what is practical is to give that information to young people, rather than hope they by telling them it’s bad they’ll avoid it. If you want to use MDMA, take it in pure form rather than a pill if possible. Don’t take other drugs at the same time. Don’t double dose. Drink about a pint of water every 90 minutes, gradually. Tell somebody if you begin to feel unwell.