Red Ribbon Iowa

2008 Red Ribbon Week Media Kit

Fact Sheet

Seeing the Connections—The Future of Our Youth Is in Your Hands

Alcohol and drug use by children and youth are associated with poor academic performance, impaired development, mental health issues, and many factors that affect the health and behavior of youth. This fact sheet provides valuable data from the Nation’s most reliable data sources (including the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and Monitoring the Future) that can help you assist local media in their coverage of substance abuse issues where you live.

Underage Drinking, Substance Abuse, and Academic Performance
  • High school students who use alcohol or drugs frequently are up to five times more likely than other students to drop out of school.1
  • Students who drink alcohol during adolescence have a reduced ability to learn, compared with those youth who do not drink until adulthood.2
  • Rates of past month use of most tobacco products were higher among persons with lower levels of education than among those with higher levels of education.3
Underage Drinking, Substance Abuse, and the Well-Being of Youth
  • More than 40 percent of individuals who begin drinking before age 13 will develop alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence at some time in their lives.4
  • Youths who were daily cigarette smokers were more likely to use other tobacco products, alcohol, and illegal drugs than current nonsmokers.5
  • The rate of current illegal drug use (18.2 percent) among current smokers was significantly higher than the rate for this group the previous year (15.6 percent).6
Underage Drinking, Substance Abuse, and Mental Health
  • Twenty-eight percent of suicides by children ages 9 to 15 could be attributed to alcohol.7
  • Adolescents with serious emotional problems were significantly more likely to report cigarette smoking than were those with intermediate or low levels of emotional problems.8
  • The severity of emotional problems is significantly associated with increased likelihood of marijuana use among adolescents.9

1 The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Malignant Neglect: Substance Abuse and America’s Schools. New York: Columbia University, 2001.
2 Swartzwelder, et al. Age-Dependent Inhibition.
3 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.
4 Grant, BE, Dawson, DA. Age at Onset of Alcohol Use and Association with DSM-IV Alcohol Abuse and Dependence: Results from the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey. J Subst Abuse 9:103-110, 1997.
5 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.
6 Ibid.
7 Unpublished data extrapolated by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism from State Trends in Alcohol Mortality, 1979-1992; U.S. Alcohol Epidemiologic Data Reference Manual, Volume 5. Rockville, MD: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 1996.
8 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The Relationship Between Mental Health and Substance Abuse Among Adolescents.
9 Ibid.