Mary Beth Nevulis
Joseph Califano, Jr., speaks Thursday at a press conference to release survey data.
WASHINGTON — A survey released Thursday indicates a grim trend in schools: gangs and drugs are on the rise.
The survey, which reached more than 2,000 teens through phone and Internet, found that more than one quarter of public school students attend gang- or drug-infected schools.
“That means that some 5.7 million public school students attend schools where drugs are used, kept or sold, and where gangs are present,” said Joseph A. Califano, Jr., the chairman of National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. The group held its press conference Thursday at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
There was a 39 percent jump from 2009 to 2010 in the number of middle school children – who are usually 12 or 13 years old – reporting drugs being used, kept or sold on school grounds.
Califano, a former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, calls this “disturbing.”
“Placing our youngest teens and pre-teens in an environment where drinking and drugging are common is child abuse, since we know that the earlier a child begins to smoke, drink or use drugs, the likelier that child is to become addicted,” Califano said.
Part of the problem of preteen and teen drug and alcohol abuse, Califano said, is simply that the substances are so readily available in schools.
“Sending a 12- to 17-year old to a school with gangs and drugs and hoping he won’t smoke, drink or use drugs is like handing that child a cheat sheet before every test and asking him not to use it, or serving a hungry child a cheeseburger and fries and asking him not to take a bite,” Califano said.
Survey finds kids in safer schools less likely to use drugs
Compared to teens attending gang- and drug-free schools, teens who attend schools that have both gangs and drugs are:
• five times likelier to use marijuana
• three times likelier to drink
• twelve times likelier to smoke
• three times likelier to be able to get marijuana within an hour or less and five times likelier to get it within a day or less
• nearly five times likelier to have a friend/classmates who uses illegal drugs like acid, ecstasy, methamphetamine, cocaine or heroin
One facet of the survey looked at drug and gang prevalence at public schools and at private or religious schools and found a vast disparity between the two kinds of schools. The percentages of private or religious school students who say they have a drug-free school remained stable, around 80 percent, in the past decade, while public school students said that only 43 percent of them attend a drug-free school – down from 62 percent in 2001.
A bright spot in the survey found that a solid bond between a parent and a teen may significantly reduce the risk that the teen will smoke, drink or use illegal drugs.
“This year’s survey underscores how critical it is for parents to forge close family ties with their children and really know their children’s friends,” said Kathleen Ferrigno, CASA’s director of marketing. “In today’s world, a parent has no greater tool to help keep their child drug-free than communication.”