How the pandemic affected teen mental health and substance abuse

"Two issues drive teen substance use: drug availability and perception of risk.

Availability: Today's teens know that obtaining substances is far too easy. For example, 70 percent of high school seniors say marijuana is either "fairly easy" or "very easy" to obtain. Seventy-seven percent say getting their hands on alcohol is very easy and twenty-one percent of seniors believe it is easy to find MDMA (ecstasy). Thirty percent say getting their hands on amphetamines is also very easy.

Perhaps more alarming, 27 percent of eighth-graders said getting ahold of a drug like marijuana is either fairly easy or very easy to do. And nearly 50 percent said alcohol is easy to find."

Richard Capriola is a counselor and author of The Addicted Child: A Parent's Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse.

He shares his story and discusses his KevinMD article, "The pandemic drives a decline in teen substance abuse."

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