Pubdate: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 Source: Telegraph, The (Nashua, NH) Copyright: 2008 Telegraph Publishing Company Contact: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/885 Author: Michael Brindley, Telegraph Staff Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) STUDY IGNORES PRESCRIPTION ABUSE Students Questioned About Use Of Drugs, Prevalence Of Violence, Sexual Activity. Despite national studies showing the abuse of prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines is rampant among teens, the issue was largely ignored in a survey of dangerous behavior among the state's youth. On Friday, the state Department of Education released the results of the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a national survey of high school students sponsored by the Center for Disease Control that is conducted every two years. High school students are asked about the prevalence of violence in their schools, as well as their own drug use, sexual and physical activity and nutrition habits. In the drug section of the survey, teens were asked about their use of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and other drugs like heroin, cocaine and ecstasy. But the survey does not touch on the abuse of prescription drugs or over-the-counter medications to get high. According a 2005 national study released by the Partnership for a Drug Free America, one in five teens reported abusing prescription drugs to get high. The study also found that one in 10 of teens reported abusing cough medicine. The study, which dubbed today's teens as "Generation Rx," found the most popular drugs were painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin. Rick Walker, head of guidance at Merrimack High School, said it's a problem that continues to get worse. Just recently he said he had a situation where a student was stealing a prescription antidepressant from a parent. "I would say that it's more prevalent than it ever was before," Walker said. The state's Youth Risk Behavior Survey was administered to 1,638 students in 61 of 69 randomly selected public high schools during the spring of 2007. Randomly selected classes completed an anonymous survey consisting of 99 questions. Thirty-nine high schools in the state also opted to conduct a school-wide survey, in addition to the random survey. The Department of Health and Human Services will produce individual school reports. Jeffrey Metzger, senior management analyst at the Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for collecting the data. He also works in drug and alcohol prevention. He said knowing whether students in the state are abusing prescription drugs would be good information to have in the next survey. "I would think it's going to be added in the next one. You could pretty much bet on it," he said. The next survey will be conducted in 2009. Metzger said there is competition among state departments when deciding which questions to include. The data produced by the surveys are used when writing grants and allocating state funds for prevention programs, he said. He added that alcohol remains the most widely used drug among the state's teens. "The data has really shown that alcohol is the number one thing that we need to address," he said. In the Youth Risk survey, the numbers on cigarette and alcohol use stayed pretty much the same over the past two years. In 2005, 20.5 percent of students reported smoking a cigarette in the past month. In 2007, that number dipped to 19 percent. In 2005, 44 percent reported having an alcoholic drink in the past month. In 2007, the response was 44.8 percent. However, the use of marijuana appears to be on the decline. In 2005, 25.9 percent of students reported using marijuana over the past month. That dropped to 22.9 percent in 2007. Students also reported fewer drugs being offered or sold at school. In 2005, 26.9 percent of students said they were offered, sold or given an illegal drug at school over the past year. That dropped to 22.5 percent in 2007. Metzger said he took notice of spikes in some areas of the survey. He pointed out there was a 2 percent increase among students who said they were forced to have sex, up from 5.2 percent in 2005 to 7.2 percent in 2007. Metzger said he would like to see more schools take part in the school-wide survey. For example, Nashua schools do not take part, but Manchester schools do, he said. "The more local data we have, the more we'll know about New Hampshire youth," he said. Ray Peterson, vice president of the United Way of Greater Nashua, said because of the perceived problem of prescription drug abuse among young people, his organization recently added questions about the issue on its own community assessment survey. "We felt that may be an issue," he said. "We try to be ahead of the game." The results of the United Way survey, which includes parents and teens in the Nashua area, are used as part of the organization's study on issues facing the community. "We may or may not get a response on that," Peterson said, about the prescription drug issue. "We won't know until we get the data back." Some other notable results of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey were: One-quarter said in the past month, they had rode, at least once, in a car with someone who had been drinking alcohol. Fourteen percent said they seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. Forty-five percent said they have had sex at least once. Four percent said they had sex before they were 13 years old. Twelve percent said they have had sex with four or more people. Eighty-nine percent said they have been taught in school about AIDS and HIV infection. - --- MAP posted-by: Steve Heath