Teens and Substance Abuse

Teens from different ethnic groups may abuse substances for different reasons.
The CNN (8/30, Hellerman) "The Chart" blog reported that "teens of different ethnic groups use alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes for different reasons and educators should use different strategies to keep them clean," according to a new study funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The study, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, "analyzed roughly 5,500 responses from seventh- and eighth-graders in Southern California to surveys that were distributed by researchers from the RAND Corporation." Hispanic "students were the most likely to report having tried alcohol, cigarettes, or marijuana," followed by "African-American students" and then Caucasians. The blog entry also noted that Asian-American students "were substantially less likely" to have tried any substance.