ATHLETE POT USE RISING - EASIER TO GET
FINDING AND HELPING STUDENTS AT RISK
FOR USE AND CONTINUED USE OF POT
John Underwood AAI
Marijuana use by athlete population is on the rise. Alcohol strategies are making it increasingly more difficult to access alcohol and as a result pot use even in the athlete population is becoming more prevalent. The recent additions of breathalyzer testing for school functions, as well as the anticipated plan for public schools to formulate a process and procedure to deal with students under the influence of alcohol at school or in conjunction with school functions, which will be drug testing (breathalyzer), will only support a continued increase in pot use.
THE BIG THREE
Involvement with other substances (alcohol and cigarettes), delinquency and school problems have been established as the three most important risk factors in identifying teenagers at risk of continued involvement with marijuana.
“We found assessment of use of other substances and peer substance use, school, and delinquency factors to be key to identifying individuals at high risk for continued involvement with marijuana. The combined presence of these three risk factors greatly increased risk of experimental (by 20 times) and regular marijuana use (by 87 times) over the next year. Prevention and intervention efforts should focus on these areas of risk.” – NIDA
Over half of the students in the study who indicated use of marijuana were still using it one year later. Twenty-one well-established risk factors of adolescent substance use/abuse, including personality, family variables and religion, were used to predict five stages of marijuana involvement:
- initiation of experimental use
- initiation of regular use
- progression to regular use
- failure to discontinue experimental use
- failure to discontinue regular use
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the USA assessed over 13,700 school students at high schools throughout the USA (aged 11-21 years). The students were participating in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the USA