New York Times (August 20, 2004).
WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 - The words of an old proverb - "Tell
me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are" - gained new meaning
on Thursday with the release of a national study showing that teenagers whose friends
were sexually active were more likely to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs.
Teenagers who reported that at least half of their friends
were sexually active were 31 times likelier to get drunk, 51/2 times likelier
to smoke and 221/2 times likelier to have tried marijuana, according
to the study, released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse
at Columbia University.
"It's a clear message for parents,"
said Joseph A. Califano Jr., the center's chairman and president. "The
thunder of teen sexual activity and dating behavior may signal the lightning of
substance abuse."
Mr. Califano was careful to point out that the
results did not indicate that sexual activity caused substance abuse or vice
versa, but rather indicated an increased risk. He said that 14.1 million of the
nation's young people ages 12 to 17 were at medium or high risk of substance
abuse, and that the risk was "tightly connected" with sexual behavior
and dating. For example, as the amount of time spent with a boyfriend or girlfriend
increases, so does the risk of substance abuse. A teenager who spends 25 or
more hours a week with a boyfriend or girlfriend is five times likelier to get
drunk and four and a half times likelier to use marijuana than a counterpart
who spends less than 10 hours with a significant other, the survey found.
Thirty-one percent of the teenagers surveyed
said they had a boyfriend or girlfriend, which increased their average risk.
The study also found that girls who dated boys who were at least two years
older were more than twice as likely to drink, four and a half times as likely
to smoke and six times likelier to get drunk or to have tried marijuana.
The survey showed that 11.5 million teenagers
had friends who regularly viewed Internet pornography and downloaded it, and
that a teenager with a majority of friends who did so was "three times
more likely to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs than a teen who has no such
friends."
The study, the ninth National Survey of
American Attitudes on Substance Abuse, asked about the attitudes of a
teenager's friends, as a surrogate for the teenager's own behavior, said Steve
Wagner, president of QEV Analytics, the company that conducted the survey.
"Teens that tell you more than half their friends smoke marijuana are much
more likely to have tried it themselves," Mr. Wagner said in an interview.
At a news conference, Mr. Califano said one
finding that had stayed consistent since the first study, in 1995, was the
"tremendous parental denial" about teenagers and drug use.
The survey found that although drugs continued
to be the biggest concern of teenagers, only 12 percent of parents saw drugs as
their teenager's No. 1 concern. But parents saw drugs and alcohol as the most
important problem facing them, as parents, with a majority saying they believed
it was unrealistic to expect that a teenager would never try an illegal drug,
and most perceived a correlation between drug and alcohol use and sexual
activity.
The survey suggested a simple way for parents
to reduce the likelihood that their teenage children would smoke, drink or use
drugs: have dinner with them. Teenagers who reported having fewer than two
family dinners a week were one and a half times likelier to abuse these
substances than those who had five or more dinners a week with their parents.
They were also more likely to have sexually active friends or spend more than
25 hours with a significant other. But as teenagers grow older they are less
likely to have family dinners, the survey found; older teenagers are also more
likely to be substance abusers or engage in sexual activity.
Mr. Califano said it was important for parents
to know their children's dating practices and their friends, and to monitor
their Internet use.
The survey interviewed 1,000 teenagers and 500
of their parents at random by telephone. The teenagers survey had a margin of
sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points; the margin for the
parental survey was plus or minus four percentage points. The report is
available at www.casacolumbia.org.