Just think, how many people were at your local high school graduation?  I went to my niece’s graduation in a small town recently and there seemed to be about 150 students there.  That would make 30 of her classmates in need of treatment and only 3 of them receiving the treatment they need.  The acting administrator for SAMHSA, Eric Broderick, had a great quote saying, “Substance use disorders are preventable and treatable yet we continue as a Nation to allow the lives of 1 in 5 young people and their families be torn apart by substance abuse.  As a nation we must redouble our efforts to prevent substance abuse in the first place and ensure treatment is available to those in need.”   I hope we can turn the tide.

Blessings,   Ginger

 Young Adult’s Need for and Receipt of Alcohol and Illicit Drug Use Treatment: 2007 is based on 2007 data drawn from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, involving responses from 22,187 persons aged 18 to 25.

The full report is available online at http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k9/157/YoungAdultsDrugTxt.cfm.  Copies may also be obtained free of charge by calling SAMHSA’s Health Information Network at 1-877-SAMHSA-7 (1-877-726-4727) or at   http://ncadistore.samhsa.gov/catalog/productDetails.aspx?ProductID=18140.  For related publications and information, visit http://www.samhsa.gov/.

A news release from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) indicates some disturbing numbers.   http://www.niaaa.nih.gov 
 

Alcohol-related deaths among U.S. college students rose from 1,440 deaths in 1998 to 1,825 in 2005, along with increases in heavy drinking and drunk driving, according to an article in the July supplement of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
 
The special issue describes the results of a broad array of research-based programs to reduce and prevent alcohol-related problems at campuses across the country.  These studies resulted from the Rapid Response to College Drinking Problems Initiative, a grant program supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health.
 
“This supplement is a valuable resource that underscores the growing number of research-driven strategies that college administrators and health officials can put in place to address serious student drinking problems,” says Acting NIAAA Director Kenneth Warren, Ph.D.
 
Reviewing the magnitude of the college alcohol problem, Ralph W. Hingson, Sc.D, M.P.H., director of NIAAA’s Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research, and colleagues analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government sources. They found that serious problems persist, as indicated by the increase in drinking-related accidental deaths among 18- to 24-year-old students, which resulted mainly from traffic-related incidents. In addition, the researchers found the proportion of students who reported recent heavy episodic drinking — sometimes called binge drinking, defined as five or more alcoholic drinks on any occasion in the past 30 days — rose from roughly 42 percent to 45 percent, and the proportion who admitted to drinking and driving in the past year increased from 26.5 percent to 29 percent.