Treatment Online

Drugs, Not Just for Guys Anymore
> 2/10/2006 3:30:42 PM

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported on a new trend that researchers studying teenage drug use encountered recently. The most recent data shows that girls are now trying drugs and alcohol on a rate that has surpassed that of their male contemporaries.

"This is the first time that we've recorded this kind of relationship between boys' and girls' drug use," said John Walters, the national drug policy director. "In the past, boys have had higher rates of use and significantly higher rates of use at certain times in the past."

"In order to drive it down further, we have to deal with today's substance abuse reality, and today's reality is, girls have been using at higher rates than boys in critical areas," Walters said.

While this change might just be an aberration of the polling and statistics data, if these trends persist for even one year, it will necessitate a top down rethinking of how we approach drug use prevention as a society. The "bad boy" image that permeates a great deal of cultural representations of drug use may be morphing into a "bad girl." We should be striving to morph those into simply boys, and girls.

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