Highschool Drugs, Lets Talk About It.
A qualitative study was done by Jennifer A. Kam, Janice L. Krieger, Erin D. Basinger & Andrea Figueroa Caballero, on substance use amongst high school students. Kam, among many things specializes in substance use communication with parents and friends at the University of California Santa Barbara. Krieger has published over 80 journal articles and serves on the Editorial Board of Health Communication and the Journal of Health Communication. Basinger attained a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, and now is the assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Caballero received her Ph.D. at University of California, Santa Barbara is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Missouri University.
Their research focused on four specific parts. Peer Substance Use: How one peer using substances can affect fellow peers, Refusal Strategies: How adolescents refuse substance use, Peer Intervention: How peers intervene with fellow peer drug use, and Peer Communication Frequency: How often adolescents discuss drug use amongst one another.
Twenty-five students from two different high schools in Illinois agreed to give their students an opportunity to be qualitatively interviewed for this study. The students varied in age, with a mean age of 16. Nearly half male and half female participated with varying ethnicity’s, however the vast majority being Non-Latino White. The students were notified about the study via school flyers. The students were cleared to participate with their parents consent. The students were asked ten questions to start, two of which pertained to this study. The questions then went further and asked about the use of specific drugs ranging from alcohol and cigarettes to more illicit drugs like marijuana, in themselves and also in their fellow classmates and friends.
Alcohol: past 30 days, half of the students had not consumed alcohol or had only consumed alcohol for religious services, 12.5% had consumed part of or one whole drink, 8.3% had 2–3 drinks, 16.6% had 4–7 drinks, and 12.6% had 8 or more drinks.
The study found that more kids had smoked marijuana than kids who had smoked cigarettes, and fairly comparable to marijuana was the alcohol use. Possibly it answer to their peers, painting these specific substances in a positive light. (interesting/comedic stories?)
The students were then asked about how they think their friends may react to them doing these drugs and also how often they think their peers may take part in use of the afore mentioned substances, and also how they reacted in similar situations.
The study then focused in on how or if the students have/would discuss substance use with their friends, and how/if they went about it. Five types of reactions were identified: (a) no big deal, (b) shock, (c) resist, (d) dismiss, (e) strengthen, and (f) engaged in substance use.
When discussing substance use amongst friends who had used drugs, the majority seemed to shy away from the topic for several reasons ranging from not feeling close enough to that friend, to not feeling like its any of their business. Though some students did report that confronting that friend actually strengthened their friendship, most of the students did not. In other words, most kids just didn’t feel the need to address this sort of things amongst their friends. It seemed as though an unspoken rule that you just let sleeping dogs lye.
The fact that this study was done on mostly white high school students in Illinois greatly limits the way of relation to the population. There is potential differences with respect to ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, developmental stages, region, and user/nonuser status that could change this study in a big way. This study was all ‘self-reported’ data as well, which can also limit how reliable the study was.
This study was done to help identify weaknesses in our school system, leading to drug abuse amongst teens. We learned that many kids refuse substances, but few talk to the peers offering them. In closing, high schools may be able to put a substance prevention intervention class in affect as a new strategy to lessen the amount of teenage abusers.
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