COMMENTARY

Survey Provides Peek At Teens’ Activities

DETAILS OF ARKANSAS PREVENTION NEEDS ASSESSMENT OF STUDENTS MIGHT SURPRISE PEOPLE

I was a pretty cautious child - a trait that has carried forward into adulthood.

For one thing, I never have experimented with illicit drugs. For the record, I have no plans on doing so in the future.

I didn’t even take a sip of alcohol until I was in college; booze never has interested me much. I admit to having smoked a couple of cigars in my life, but the last one made me sick, and that was many years ago.

Wait, did you just call me boring? Yeah, I’m OK with that.

It turns out the youth of today are far more “adventurous” than I ever have been or will be.

Well, I should say, “some” youth. Your teenager is, of course, perfect and would never even think of doing anything of which you would disapprove.

We’re talking about otherkids here.

The latest annual Arkansas Prevention Needs Assessment, coordinated by the Division of Behavioral Health Services in the state Department of Human Services, provides interesting information about how many of our kids are drinking, smoking, sniffng or engaging in otherwise less-than-angelic behavior.

The assessment, administered in November to youth in grades six, eight, 10 and 12, measured student use of alcohol, tobacco andother drugs by Arkansas students. The survey also measures “antisocial behaviors,” such as taking a gun to school, assaulting someone or belonging to a gang.

Just more than 100,000 students from 221 school districts took the anonymous survey, including 7,877 from Benton County and 7,011 from Washington County. About 10 percent of the surveys were discarded for not providing valid data.

This year’s assessment, along with studies from past years, is available online at arkansas.

pridesurveys.com.

There are a lot of numbers, charts and graphs to behold and digest. You will find a state report, plus reports for individual counties and school districts (though district reports require a password to access for some reasonof which I’m not aware).

Anyway, among the things you can learn from this report is binge drinking appears to be the largest heavy use problem among Arkansas youth.

November’s survey showed 10 percent of kids between the sixth and 12th grades binge drank (defi ned as having fi ve or more drinks on one occasion) at least once in the past two weeks. As one would expect, high school seniors are primarily the ones engaging in this behavior.

A full 23.3 percent of them reported recent binge drinking.

But there’s a silver lining: Binge drinking among our state’s youth has declined by 5.4 percent since 2006.

Want some other statistics from the report?

Here’s a sampling:

Five percent of all students, and 10.4 percent of 12th-graders, reportedengaging in heavy marijuana use, defi ned as at least one marijuana cigarette a day.

Thirteen percent of students reported using two or more substances (alcohol, tobacco or other drugs) within the past 30 days. Seven percent reported using three or more substances in the same time frame.

About 4.3 percent of students reported they had been arrested in the past year. The average age for arrest was 13.5.

Though the defi nition of “gang” varies among students, 6.1 percent reported that they belonged to one. This percentage has been dwindling over the years, from 8.2 percent in 2006.

About 3.4 percent of students reported they had sold illegal drugs within the past year.

It seems, by mostmeasures, students from Benton and Washington counties compare favorably to statewide numbers on drug use and antisocial behaviors.

It’s obvious from examining this assessment someone has put a lot of work into it. It probably deserves more attention than it gets from the public.

So, if you have a free hour or so, you might take a look. If nothing else, the Arkansas Prevention Needs Assessment serves as a good reminder to parents of the stuft their teens can encounter in the world. Better yet, it should prompt a healthy discussion between parents and their kids about the choices they can make and all the ways they can possibly screw up their lives.

DAVE PEROZEK IS EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR OF NORTHWEST ARKANSAS NEWSPAPERS.

Opinion, Pages 13 on 06/24/2012

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