An annual survey of teenagers found that girls are drinking more alcohol than boys, but they are less likely to use drugs. However, that too might be changing because the survey also indicated that girls are taking an increasingly more tolerant attitude toward drug use.
- MetLife Foundation and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America surveyed 3,300 teenagers in private, public and parochial schools in 2008 and again in 2009.
- The percent of girls who agreed with the statement, "Drugs help you forget your troubles," increased from 40% to 53% in one year.
- Only 33% of the girls said they do not want to "hang out" with drug abusers, compared to 38% in 2008.
Girls were more likely to associate drugs and alcohol as ways to deal with stress.
"Girls tend to be more internalizers with issues that are happening. It makes sense that if they have some stress in things that they are dealing with, they are going to take care of themselves instead of reaching out," said Dr. Leslie Walker, director of adolescent medicine at Seattle Children's Hospital.
Other experts point to changes in the culture.
"Women previously had more constrained roles in terms of the propriety of indulging in behaviors such as public intoxication and the like," said Dr. Marc Galanter, director of the division of alcoholism and drug abuse at New York University Langone Medical Center. "Now with women in the workforce and becoming more liberated, they are not so constrained."
The survey indicated that girls may be catching up with boys in terms of drug and alcohol use, because the boys' use is declining as the girls' use is increasing.
Posted By: Boarding Schools for Girls
