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?

My teens (17&15) definitely don’t. 17yo has the occasional drink but has never been drunk. None of them or their friends smoke. But dd was friends with some girls who started drinking very young and she got really upset about it a couple of years ago and I think it scared her. I have friends whose teens get pissed and smoke weed etc from the same school though.
My brother was schizophrenic and died before they were born and I think smoking copious amounts of weed from a young age triggered it and whilst I haven’t talked about him and his illness loads, they know about it and I would be very concerned if they started taking drugs.

I was a teenager in the 00's. I went to a high-performing middle-class school but came from a very working class background. A lot of my school peers came from well to do backgrounds (they had a private helicopter and swimming pools in their garden) and they were the majority of my friends who did drugs, probably from the age of 16. Most of my friends smoked weed, but my middle-class friends were already experimenting with coke and MDMA with their pocket-money, not that mummy or daddy dearest had any suspicions of what their generous pocket money was being spent on!

Wasn't as cheap 25 years ago when I was at school but still easily available. We did them from 15 upwards. Stopped once started working in our early 20s.

I think most teens try them but nit most do them regularly IME. It definitely depends on the group they hang around with. If a few in their group do it then I wouldn't be naive enough to think my DCs are the only ones not doing it. I moved away from my main friendship group at about 18/19 and the people I began hanging around with didn't take anything. I didn't bother either after a short while.

I would definitely prefer my kids not to of course but I know its likely they'll try.

DS is 24 and DD is 21. I am a problem drinker/alcoholic, currently dry - this may have influenced my DCs views on alcohol - I've never taken any other drugs.

DS would never take drugs - he is extremely risk averse, hates smoking with a passion (cigarettes or weed) and only this year started having a lager or two on a night out. I know this to be true as he is very reserved and only managed to get a friendship group very recently (through a car club). Friends are also all car buffs and prefer driving to drinking etc. He still lives at home, works from home and is in most nights. I have never seen him drunk or under the influence of anything.

DD is more of a livewire and works in a nightclub. She likes to pretend she drinks - posing with cocktails, bottles of (very expensive) vodka etc but when I go into her room after she's left, the bottle is still full and the cocktails are not drunk. On our last family holiday (November 2021, five day break to Tenerife), she only drank water/coffees. Again, I've never seen her drunk/under the influence and she detests smoking of any sort.

Both of my DC tell me that drugs are extremely common in their age groups. Weed is apparently cheaper than a bottle of vodka. Both say that people they know take cocaine, ketamine etc because "getting drunk is too messy". I also know that in our local pub, an older age group (say 50 plus) are now routinely taking cocaine. To be fair, we live in a fairly affluent area where kids have money. When I used to walk through the lane that ran past their school (before they left and I walked to work), the smell of weed in the morning and after school would have knocked you out.

So I would say it is very common but of course, not "everyone" is doing it.

We have a very backwards approach to drug use in this country, compared to much of Eu, the US and Canada.

There are people who are heavily invested in the party line and in prohibition, even though prohibition causes more harm as there is no regulation.

I can’t see it changing any time soon sadly. Humans have been seeking consciousness altering experiences through substances for millennia, our cognitive dissonance around this is ridiculous.

No, judging by my cousins and their friends they a boring generation. They just work. Growing up I never saw or heard about drugs. Think it's who you mix with maybe.

@Karwomannghia
Your 15 and 17 year olds have never been drunk

How do you know though? You can’t be with them at every party they go to.

It's a bit of a cop-out to suggest that the parents who think their dc don't take drugs are just blissfully unaware. So the parents of the drug-takers convince themselves that they are actually better parents because at least their kids are talking to them about it, whereas the others are just in denial.

Of course, there will be some kids whose parents will be oblivious to what their kids are doing, and yes, it is better if you at least know. But there will also be many, many parents who are absolutely right in their belief that their kids don't do drugs. Lots of kids don't.

My mum would have been one of the ones on here saying that her kids didn't do drugs. She would have been right. Neither dsis nor I ever touched them. I never even tried a bloody cigarette. The majority of my friends didn't do drugs either. A small number did.

I think it's too easy for parents to shake off any worry about drugs by persuading themselves that this is normal teenage behaviour. Yes, it's true that drug use is fairly common, but I don't actually think that the majority of kids go down that route. Though it will be the majority in certain friendship groups.

No they don't all do drugs.
I teach 300 a week and have a couple of home grown ones, most of them don't even drink. We're in Italy where being pissed isn't part of the culture, teen or otherwise. Obviously some people, some teens get involved in drugs, but certainly where I am it's a minority.

DD went to a London private school. I'm as sure as I can be that she wasn't taking drugs herself but I was shocked by the prevalence of ketamine and edibles in her rather nerdy and "uncool" social group.

I grew up in London and hard drug use was normal among my peers (although I didn't participate myself). But DH grew up in a rural environment and it wasn't normal for him, and I'm raising my teens outside London and I'd say it's not normal here. Perhaps I'm being naive (as you say, the parents often don't know) - I can only tell you what I believe to be the case.

[quote Oslosunshine]@Karwomannghia
Your 15 and 17 year olds have never been drunk

How do you know though? You can’t be with them at every party they go to.[/quote]
My 16yo says she has never been drunk and I believe her. She has drunk alcohol at parties but never drinks much because she is scared of throwing up.

I think a lot of teenagers try them but it definitely isn't the norm for the majority of them to be doing them in a regular basis. Especially not coke. More Ket, MDMA, randoms pills. Coke in actual school aged teens sounds very London.

There are lots of surveys done every year which measure drug prevalence, use, experimentation with teens so this isn't a question to which there is no data. My quick google (and it was really quick) tells me that about 55% report binge-drinking, about a 1/3 have tried cannabis and about 1 in 10 use other substances in the past year by aged 17, so MDMA, cocaine, etc.

It's interesting that you say she does 'weed' and that kind of doesn't count- it might not count for you as 'hard drugs' but the THC content in resin is much higher than in herbal weed and there's a lot of synthetic cannabis about, I would find that to be worrying actually unless it's very occasional.

I think saying all teens do drugs is not true, but a lot drink excessively, nearing 50% will use cannabis in a lifetime, but other drug use isn't probably as prevalent as people think it is- it tends to be influenced by what we see around us or with our own teens.

The idea that teens don't know where to get drugs is hilarious. I don't even know where to start with that. Drug networks run through their friendship groups and friends of friends, so most will know where to get stuff even if they don't use it themselves.

I fully support a harm reduction approach and think initiatives like The Loop are fantastic (drug testing at festivals where they inform the person what they have bought and give safety advice if they chose to consume it) but I also don't shy away of advising my children that heavy drinking or regular cannabis use is a really bad idea for them due to the amount of mental health problems in our extended families and their own vulnerability.

I’d say most teenagers do not do drugs.
Yes certain scenes and schools will have a high incidence of drugs taking. Yes, teens who do take drugs tend to socialise with other teens who take drugs, so they create their own echo chamber crowd where “everyone they know does drugs”.

But on the scale of all teenagers, no I’d say most do not take drugs.

An ecstasy tablet it what, £5-10? That’s cheaper than alcohol.

I will add that my experience was in a grammar school in a Home county and not London. I think people are quite naive if they think drug taking amongst teens doesn't happen in their suburban county...

That’s strange to me as someone who grew up in London. I always felt the myth that all Londoners are ahead of their years taking drugs, etc was what encouraged others to take drugs. My experience was that there was less dug taking in London than say, Manchester.

I have no idea, mine are in primary. There is a book called ‘mum can you lend me twenty quid’ which is one of the best books I’ve read about drugs and addiction.

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 dosage

I’d be interested on how she’s going to “educate them on dosages”, when these are illegal drugs and therefore there is absolutely no way to even guess what dosage is ingested on any occasion.

It’s not as if your dealer is held by manufacturing standard and has to verify the mg dose in each tab/wrap or whatever.

I’d be educating on what the drugs actually do. And emphasising the drugs themselves are unsafe, so many people seem to think the drugs are fine, it’s contaminants that are the problem
.

I’d be fucking furious if I found out mine were experimenting. That is my hill. There is no way to take drugs safely, which many of my friends all seemed to think. If i drink water/click my heels/take another drug alongside i’ll be ok. It doesn’t work like that.

[quote Oslosunshine]@Pyri
If that’s the case then how on earth does my DD get hold of them? She said ease of access is one of the reasons why they are so common.[/quote]
Instagram. Weed, Ket, anything you want and they will deliver (or meet you). Drugs like Cocaine now are ridiculously cheap compared to 30 years ago.
There are some clearweb sites that sell online, next day delivery.

Also apps like Telegram have loads of established dealers and you can pay by Paypal, Bitcoin, bank transfer, card or cash. If you know where to look you can get anything you want. Surprisingly and worryingly cheap.

No. Mine have never taken drugs. Also work with teens in care, I reckon about a 1/3 have used drugs (and yes they tell us) of the 1/3 about half do drugs harder than weed.

Dc went to a privileged London school. The youngest (19) said drugs were very common among half his year group.

@Nomoreusernames1244

I am so with you 100 per cent. I will never be that cool mum telling my children how to take illegal drugs ‘safely’.

@19lottie82
Md is insanely cheap.

@MunchyMonsters
How do you know that they definitely haven’t taken drugs?

@Nomoreusernames1244
I’m not sure. If they’re going to take drugs then they’re going to take drugs. I would have found myself in lots of bad situations if I didn’t know not to overhydrate myself whilst on MDMA for example.

Do most teenagers do drugs? No, I don't think so. But I do think in some cities/social circles there will likely be a higher proportion who do.

I grew up in a rural area, and was poor. Drugs weren't on my radar - I wouldn't have a clue where to get them from, never mind afford them. Although that was a different time - before WhatsApp etc which I imagine would make access easier. However, when I went to uni there were loads of people doing drugs - perhaps it was common in their school days/their area, or perhaps they felt uni was the time to experiment - away from parents etc

I also think lots of teens are more socially aware that we give them credit for - they know about country lines etc and many don't want to be involved.