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?

And because the internet exists, every young person nowadays can find information which is balanced about the harms of drugs

They can also find a whole lot of crap. And even the “good” sources aimed at keeping kids safe aren’t always accurate and often minimise the tisk.

Sex is a normal part of life. My kids will have sex, it’s legal over the age of 16 and a completely healthy thing to do. I do not have a problem with them having sex. Yes they need to be aware of pregnancy and sti’s, in the same way we all need to be aware of smear tests and breast checking ti keep ourselves healthy.

Illegal drugs are not legal, they are not safe, and they risk their lives every single time they choose to take an illegal drug.

Plus they are contributing to the trafficking, prostitution of young children, and other criminality.

They are very informed about drugs. If they choose to break the law knowing what they know then I can’t stop them. But they have enough info on what drugs do to your body I hope they never take that risk.

@Cheekypeach
Completely agree with you. Better to be aware than blissfully unaware!

@Nomoreusernames1244
Well that makes sense then considering I was at University before the 00s

@Karwomannghia
Why shouldn’t they be legalised, just because you personally don’t like them?
I don’t like the smell of cigarettes or the fact that alcohol can lead to long term health problems. Doesn’t mean I think they should be illegal; people should have the choice to put whatever they want in their bodies. Drugs should be legalised, regulated and therefore made safer

Honestly the lengths the girls went to to hide their drug use from their parents - changing into clothes to smoke weed, then back into the original clothes to go home in. Keeping the drugs out of the house (even in their school lockers). Saving their lunch and bus money to spend on drugs by not eating and walking home.

These are girls that went on to RG universities and now have professional or good jobs.

No parent, literally not a single one, can confidently assert their child doesn’t take drugs. You’ll never know, and I’m willing to bet 90% of parents whose kids do take drugs have zero inkling. ‘Not my child at their middle class school’ etc

Why shouldn’t they be legalised, just because you personally don’t like them?

What do you mean by legalised? Most legal drugs aren’t freely available to buy, you have to access them via a prescribing medic.

So even if you make them legal, you still won’t be able to pop to the pharmacy for your MDMA, and no dr worth their registration will prescribe such risky substances for recreational use.

Why shouldn’t they be legalised, just because you personally don’t like them?

Because the wider public shouldn’t have to tolerate nutters that are off their faces on crack rioting around the streets making them feel unsafe.

No parent, literally not a single one, can confidently assert their child doesn’t take drugs

Mine is regularly drug tested, and if caught risks their entire career. So I can confidently assert they don’t. If they do, they risk losing everything they’ve worked for, and they’ve put so much into it it’s not a risk they’ll take. They even check food just in case.

I think those drugs (ket, coke and MDMA) are a fairly common part of a a uni night out, but 17 not so much. The overdosing thing sounds very extreme and dangerous, and suggests that they're doing things out of peer pressure.

Mixing coke and ketamine was really popular when I was at uni, and clearly a stupid and risky idea. I wouldn't be surprised if even worse ideas are common with the generation that ate Tide Pods for tiktok challenges.

@Cheekypeach 100% this.
My parents didn’t have a clue. And they still don’t know the full extent of my teenage drug use.
I used to use my lunch money and bus fare to buy 20 cigarettes (about £6 in the mid 2000’s), would sell those for 50p each, and use my profit to buy enough coke to do a few lines during my lunch break.
I’d shove a packet of crisps from home in my bag so I’d have something to eat during the day, and would either walk home from school or I’d get a lift to my bus stop and walk from there with one of the girls who’s older boyfriend could drive.
Even if my parents did find the coke I was taking into the house, I always had it in such small quantities, they would have thought they were looking at a bit of balled up empty clingfilm at first glance.

Mine doesn’t (17) and his friends might have tried some but don’t. They are pretty snotty about fags and drink too. A reaction to boozy, party parents I guess.
A lot of the teens I work with smoke weed but other drugs are too expensive for regular use. They use vapes like it’s going out of fashion.

@Midlander88 Coke and Ketamine mixed together was known as “the poor man’s Speedball” when I was a teen.
The ketamine was cheaper and easier to get hold of and less scary than the morphine/other opiates that would be used in a “traditional” speedball.
Still seems pretty common place from what I hear from the younger crowd in the pub I work in - they all seem pretty knowledgeable for people who “don’t do that shit”

I think this thread is really interesting because there is a clear difference in moral standpoints on drugs from parents. It sounds like a lot of parents don't object to drugs necessarily, but they are concerned their children take them carefully. These are the parents that feel that most teenagers will take them anyway, and so they are more concerned about damage limitation.

Then other parents have strong views that most teenagers don't take drugs, any drug use is drugs harmful and advising teenagers about how to take them safely normalises the issue and therefore increases risk.

I don't think these two positions can be reconciled.

@Nomoreusernames1244

No parent, literally not a single one, can confidently assert their child doesn’t take drugs

Mine is regularly drug tested, and if caught risks their entire career. So I can confidently assert they don’t. If they do, they risk losing everything they’ve worked for, and they’ve put so much into it it’s not a risk they’ll take. They even check food just in case.

How old are they?

How old are they?

Why does it matter?

They’re 16.

@WarmWinterSun

I think this thread is really interesting because there is a clear difference in moral standpoints on drugs from parents. It sounds like a lot of parents don't object to drugs necessarily, but they are concerned their children take them carefully. These are the parents that feel that most teenagers will take them anyway, and so they are more concerned about damage limitation.

Then other parents have strong views that most teenagers don't take drugs, any drug use is drugs harmful and advising teenagers about how to take them safely normalises the issue and therefore increases risk.

I don't think these two positions can be reconciled.

I wonder how much those respective positions are influenced by the parent's own experience of drug taking? Ie the ones who did drugs themselves assume that their kids will do it too, and the ones who didn't think that it isn't inevitable that their kids will want to try?

I don’t think they can either. I’ve never seen a sensible balanced discussion about drug use on here, it always becomes about judgement and moral panic.

I never took drugs as a teen but then I wasn't popular and was never invited to parties so I never had the opportunity.

[quote Oslosunshine]@Cheekypeach
Completely agree with you. Better to be aware than blissfully unaware!

@Nomoreusernames1244
Well that makes sense then considering I was at University before the 00s

@Karwomannghia
Why shouldn’t they be legalised, just because you personally don’t like them?
I don’t like the smell of cigarettes or the fact that alcohol can lead to long term health problems. Doesn’t mean I think they should be illegal; people should have the choice to put whatever they want in their bodies. Drugs should be legalised, regulated and therefore made safer [/quote]
I’ve stewarded enough music festivals to tell you that you really don’t want people wandering around the streets on drugs. Freaking nightmare trying to corral them and stop them hurting themselves!

@JudyGemstone

I don’t think they can either. I’ve never seen a sensible balanced discussion about drug use on here, it always becomes about judgement and moral panic.

There’s literally nothing positive to be said about legalisation. It won’t have the effect you think it will. For it to be a controlled and safe exercise, the drugs will be low purity, the people taking it will need to be confined to ‘safe’ premises. Drug dealers will simply offer cheaper and higher purity drugs for consumption wherever people want to take them. Let’s face it drug users want to get off their tree at a festival on something strong, not taking the drug equivalent of Coors light while surrounded by St John ambulance workers.

I'm 35 and from a suburban area nowhere near London and it absolutely was the norm when I was a teen to take MDMA, amphetamines, Coke, ket etc. It was very rare I'd meet anyone socially that didn't, and those that didn't usually had a family member that had or was a heroin addict and they had an all drugs bad mentality.

Yes, there's a lot of it.

[quote PotatoGoblins]@Midlander88 Coke and Ketamine mixed together was known as “the poor man’s Speedball” when I was a teen.
The ketamine was cheaper and easier to get hold of and less scary than the morphine/other opiates that would be used in a “traditional” speedball.
Still seems pretty common place from what I hear from the younger crowd in the pub I work in - they all seem pretty knowledgeable for people who “don’t do that shit” [/quote]
Ohh! They called it CK1 a decade ago, I guess it's a similar rebrand of Country Perry to Babycham

Isn't it amazing to think, affluent teens/uni kids from "nice areas" totally fine and normal to do drugs.

Kids from deprived areas doing the same thing, usually vilified and written off.

There would be no child of mine would stand in front of me to condescendingly tell me that everyone does drugs, get over it.

Everyone is telling you what's normal to them anecdotally. If you aren't happy for tour kids to take drugs, go talk to them, tell them what you expect from them and where you have set your boundaries on it. Of they cross those lines, it's up to you then to figure out how to deal with it.

ComtesseDeSpair ,
This is why I didn't write about her smoking weed, or tobacco. I'm not in favour of either but they at least are survivable in the short term. Taking illegal drugs is like
playing Russian roulette whether it's social consumption or taking coke or uppers to help with exam cramming. You really don't know what's in anything whether it's swallowed inhaled or injected. A dose of medicine is prescribed according to body weight among other criteria but mdma tablets don't have that refinement. A 7 stone girl will be taking the same dose as a 15 stone rugby player. Is it becoming some form of bragging to say that your teens are at an affluent school because the kids can afford to buy drugs ?(even if they are funded inadvertently by their parents). I know how hard it can be to get them to listen let alone pay attention but please, if you must "educate" them do it with pictures of the aftermath of taking 1 bad pill

My group was awful back at college, until a friend died of an ecstacy overdose. Most of us never touched drugs after that, but a few continued along that line - they're now mid 30s and still pretty messy.

At my private London school we only smoked weed occasionally and started experimenting more at uni and then especially in our '20s.

But I had friends at another, much more prestigious and expensive central London school and they were all taking absolutely loads of drugs.