Teens say stress is why they take drugs

flashl

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Wed Aug-13-08 05:37 AM
Original message

Teens say stress is why they take drugs

UPI

NEW YORK, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- The top reason U.S. teens give for using drugs is to deal with the pressures and stress of school, officials at the Partnership for a Drug-Free America said.

The Partnership Attitude Tracking Study of 6,511 teens said 73 percent of teens reported that school stress is the primary reason for drug use. However, just 7 percent of parents believe teens might use drugs to deal with stress.

Over the past decade, studies have indicated a changing trend in what teens perceive as the motivations for using drugs.

Steve Pasierb, president of the partnership, said that "to have fun" rationales are declining, while motivations to use drugs to solve problems are increasing,

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lligrd

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Wed Aug-13-08 06:00 AM
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1. If They Think School Is Stressful

just wait until they work and have kids. Not putting them down, just saying.

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LeftishBrit

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Wed Aug-13-08 06:09 AM
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2. I suspect that a lot of the stress comes from their peers, not from hard work

Many teenagers spend a lot of their time being put down, bullied mentally or even physically, excluded, treated as failures. Some of this comes from adults but far more from other teenagers.

Adults tend to be much more tolerant of each other than teenagers are. Not saying they're very tolerant, but if you think you've got a workplace bully, or the neighbours from hell, (and I've had to deal with both in my time), just think back to your teenage days and it will probably seem fairly mild in comparison.

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Warpy

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Wed Aug-13-08 08:46 PM
Response to Reply #2

5. Thanks, that's school stress in a nutshell

especially added to the fact that teenagers are natural drama queens about every little thing that happens to them. I remember some of the blonde ruling class waxing suicidal over the beginning of a zit outbreak before a weekend.

There isn't much in later life in interpersonal terms that is worse than high school.

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varkam

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Wed Aug-13-08 09:28 AM
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3. It's all relative.

Having a ten page term paper might be very stressful to a 15-year-old, but not to a 30-year-old who has spent most of his or her life struggling to make ends meet simply because the 15-year-old has not had those life experiences on which they can base things off of.

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dropkickpa

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Wed Aug-13-08 12:46 PM
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4. Dude

I got high as a teen because it was fun. Stress is a handy excuse to tell researchers, but it's just as big a load of bullshit as the one about spending the night at Sandy's when you're really out fucking your boyfriend after a kegger in someone's basement. The have fun answers are declining because kids get called dumbasses if they give that as their reason, but get sympathy and understanding of sorts if they say "they're stressed about school" :cry:

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