Adolescent Substance Use Trends Essay

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Adolescent Substance Use Trends Patterns and trends of substance use among adolescents fluctuates from generation to generation. There are many factors related to the increased risk for substance experimentation. For example, generational substance use, poor parental monitoring, and low academic performance contribute to elevated risk for substance use (Allison, et al., 1999). Substances that have remained on the forefront for adolescent use and abuse include alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana (Hussey, Drinkard, Flannery). Summary of Research Adolescent substance use has many facets including illicit drug use and alcohol and tobacco use. The most common illicit drug used by adolescents is marijuana (Murphey, Barry, Vaughn, Guzman & Terzian, 2013). Marijuana use is steadily increasing among adolescents while methamphetamines are on the decline among youth (Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman & Schulenberg, 2006). Substance use among adolescents increases significantly if substance use is exhibited in the home (Allison, et al., 1999). On the contrary, if members of the household do …show more content…

Adolescent Developmental Tasks and Challenges while engaging and interesting do not explore adolescent substance use trends. The Cognitive and Moral Development topic narrowly addressed substance use and connected it to risk taking and undeveloped brain functions for the reasons adolescents experiment and use substances (Steinberg, 2005). The Factors Contributing to Youth Substance Abuse topic lands itself in the similarities along with the modules Common Co-Occurring Disorders and common behaviors in Substance Abusing Adolescents. Contrarily, the Screening and Assessment Tools section focused on the assessor, the setting, and the multiple assessment approach rather than trends in adolescent substance use (“Center for Substance,”

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