Raising Healthy Kids

Drew Barrymore: Little Girl Lost Finds Her Way

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Addiction, Drug Rehabilitation, Raising Healthy Kids on August 31st, 2010

We have read about the issues that a number of celebrities encounter. Some of these issues are major, some minor, while others end in unfortunate tragedy. There are stories, however, of celebrities who may have reached the depths of despair but picked themselves up eventually, emerging as victors in the end. One such person is the lovely Drew Barrymore.

drew barrymoreDrew Barrymore was born on February 22, 1975, to actor John Drew Barrymore and Ildiko Jaid Mako, in Culver City, California. Acting is in her blood; her great-grandparents and grandparents are actors, and she had great-grand- and grand- aunts and uncles who were also into acting or worked in the film industry.

Her pedigree and her talent unsurprisingly shot her to fame, and she is best remembered for her role as Gertie in E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. The success she enjoyed so early in life, however, came at a price; as a little girl, she was already a regular at Studio 54. She was smoking at age 9, started drinking alcohol at age 11, smoked marijuana at 12, and snorted cocaine at 13. She was 13 when she first went into rehab.

She wrote about all those experiences in an autobiography in 1990, entitled Little Girl Lost. A year after the book came out, she was clean, and has been clean ever since.

Her wild past may have spelled a doomed future at that time, but Drew Barrymore has risen beyond that and serves as proof that intervention, when done at the right time and with the right attitude, can turn anyone’s life around.

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Gangs and Drugs Prevail in Public Schools!

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Addiction, Raising Healthy Kids on August 20th, 2010

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University has released the results of its 15th annual back-to-school survey, and what these results revealed may be a cause of concern for parents.

school drugsThe teen survey showed that about a quarter – 27 percent (5.7 million) – of teens (aged 12 to 17) who attended public schools revealed that their schools were both drug- and gang-infected. A drug-infected school is defined as a school where “drugs are used, kept or sold on school grounds.”

Teens that are exposed to such an environment, the study revealed further, are: five times more likely to use marijuana; three times more likely to drink; twelve times more likely to smoke; three times more likely to be able to get marijuana within an hour or less; five times more likely to get marijuana within a day or less; and nearly five times more likely to have a friend or a classmate who uses illegal drugs such as acid, ecstasy, methamphetamine, cocaine or heroin.

In addition, the study showed that 46 percent of teens who attended public school said that gangs are present in their schools, while 47 percent said that there are drugs used, kept or sold in the school’s premises.

There is a difference, the study showed, in the situations in public and private schools. In comparison to public schools, only two percent of teens who attend private and religious schools report that there are gangs in their schools, while 78 percent report that their schools are drug-free.

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Media in Parent-Child Communication on Substance Abuse

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Alcohol Abuse, Drug Addiction, Raising Healthy Kids on August 18th, 2010

A press release from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America shares the results of a research, which showed that more than a third of parents are concerned about the exposure of their teens to media. This exposure, according to the study, has become a hindrance to communication between parent and child regarding risky behavior, such as the dangers posed by the use of drugs and alcohol.

teen drug abuseThe results were based from a survey conducted among 1,200 parents. It showed that 38 percent of parents were concerned about TV, 37 percent about computers, and 33 percent about video games. Other areas that parents were concerned about are cell phone texting and social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

A study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation looked into two thousand teens and determined the average amount of time that young people between the ages of 8 and 18 spend using various entertainment media. The results showed that young people spend 53 hours – almost eight hours a day – immersed in some form of media. The same study also found that teens who consume more media tend to be less happy, while those who are attracted to media tend to perform poorly in school.

Partnership President Steve Pasierb said: “These new findings present a unique opportunity for parents to play a more active role in what their kids are watching, monitor how they are spending their time online and remain aware of the impact all of this media consumption is having on their impressionable teens.”

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Exercise in Teens Can Prevent Future Drug Abuse

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Drug Abuse Prevention, Raising Healthy Kids on August 12th, 2010

A study conducted by researchers at the Brookhaven National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy indicated that physical exercise as an adolescent can decrease cocaine-seeking behavior, at least in young adult rats, as shared in a feature on PhysOrg.com.

According to the feature, what these results may show is that the same effect may be achieved in human subjects; this makes physical activity as an adolescent as a potential deterrent for cocaine abuse. The results of the study were published online through the journal Behavioral Brain Research.

exerciseLead author Panayotis Thanos, a neuroscientist at the Brookhaven Lab and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Laboratory of Neuroimaging, shared: “This is a first step in trying to understand the connection between exercise and substance abuse. We want to see how manipulating exercise will impact susceptibility to drug abuse and addiction.”

The researchers worked on the premise that physical activity results in an improvement in the way the brain processes dopamine, which is associated with the experience of pleasure and reward. Based on previous studies, the researchers decided to focus on how exercise during adolescence affected drug use later in life.

Thanos explained: “The major idea in this paper is that animals exposed to exercise during adolescence showed less preference for cocaine later in life. This hammers home the notion that exercise may play a valuable role in decreasing the risk of drug addiction.”

The study grouped animals into the control group, which remained sedentary, and the exercise group, which began working out during adolescence. The exercise consisted of running on treadmills five days a week over a period of six weeks; this continued into the conditioning and testing periods.

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Teen Drug Abuse: Street Drugs versus Prescription Drugs

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Prescription Drug Abuse, Raising Healthy Kids on August 4th, 2010

In a previous post, we shared a helpful document regarding prescription drug abuse in teenagers provided by the Drug Enforcement Administration. A portion of that document discusses the difference – and similarities – between street drugs and prescription drugs, and why teenagers may be drawn to the latter.

prescription drug abuse“Street drugs” is the sweeping term that is used to refer to abused substances that are categorized as illegal. This includes, among others, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana.

Prescription drugs are legal medicines prescribed to treat certain illnesses. According to Prescription for Disaster, most teenagers view the recreational use of prescription drugs as “safer” compared to street drugs. For one, prescription drugs are medicines, and can be obtained from doctors, pharmacies, friends and family members; there is no need to go to shady dealers in dimly-lit street corners.

There is also a way to find out the effects of prescription drugs; package inserts, advertisements and the Internet are able to provide this information.

This, of course, is a fallacy that needs to be corrected. While prescription drugs may have important medical applications, indiscriminate use and abuse is just as dangerous – and as illegal – as using street drugs.

Dr. Nida Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), described such an instance at a testimony before the House Government Reform Committee in 2006. Describing the effect of the prescription drug Ritalin, Dr. Volkow shares that the drug has a lot in common with cocaine. When taken orally as prescribed, and under the supervision of, a physician, it results in a gradual increase in the brain chemical dopamine. When taken intravenously, however, the increase of dopamine is rapid, which is the same as cocaine taken intravenously.

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Prescription Drugs and Teens: Why Do They Do It?

Posted by DrugFreeHomes in Prescription Drug Abuse, Raising Healthy Kids on July 30th, 2010

In a previous post, we shared the existence of a guide regarding teenagers and prescription drug abuse, provided by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). One of the things discussed in the document is how teenagers abuse prescription drugs, and why they turn to it.

teen prescription drug abuseData from a 2007 study called Monitoring the Future revealed that seven out of 11 drugs that were used by 12th graders to get high were medicines. Among them are cough medicines, inhalants, sedatives and tranquilizers.

In another report from 2007 entitled “Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities,” given by the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, it was shown that the proportion of college students who abused prescription drugs increased between 1993 and 2005. The percentage of increase was rather significant: 450 percent for tranquilizers such as Xanax and Valium; 343 percent for opioids such as Vicodin and OxyContin; 225 percent for sedatives such as Nembutal and Seconal; and 93 percent for stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall.

Experts who weighed in on the reasons for prescription drug abuse among teenagers shared several insights. Teenagers reportedly turn to prescription drug abuse as a means of escape, or simply because they felt that they had nothing better to do. They may also turn to abuse of medicines as they try to achieve that “ideal” physical appearance.

There are several reasons that are disheartening, however, not the least of which is the fact that some students abuse drugs in order to be more competitive in school, and in order to handle the pressure of combining school work and extra-curricular activities.

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