Parental Substance Abuse Endangers Kids
by AFA Journal
May 17, 2005
(AgapePress) - It certainly wouldn't surprise anyone with a modicum of common sense, but according to a new white paper released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA), parental substance abuse is harmful to their children."Parents who use illegal drugs, abuse alcohol and use tobacco put half the nation's children -- more than 35 million of them -- at greater risk of substance abuse and of physical and mental illnesses," said a CASA press statement.
The paper, Family Matters: Substance Abuse and the American Family, stated that 13 percent of children under the age of 18 live in a home where an adult uses illegal drugs; 24 percent of minor children live in a household where an adult abuses alcohol; and 37 percent of children live in a household where an adult uses tobacco.
The result of such substance abuse: children in such households are likelier to use the same substances. For kids with adults who use illegal drugs or abuse alcohol, they are also more likely to be abused or neglected, are "at increased risk of accidents, injuries and academic failure," and are more likely to "suffer conduct disorders" and "depression or anxiety."
"Kids don't read their parents' lips, they watch their parents' actions," said CASA chairman Joseph A. Califano, Jr., who served as U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Jimmy Carter. "Too many parents set examples that increase the risk their children will smoke, use illegal drugs and abuse alcohol."
Pot Use Increases Risk of Mental Illness
Meanwhile, researchers in New Zealand have found that consistent use of marijuana increases a pot smoker's risk of mental illness such as schizophrenia. Published in the journal Addiction, the study was headed by researcher David Fergusson of the University of Otago, whose team examined more than 1,200 New Zealanders over a 25-year period.
"Even when all factors were taken into account, there was a clear increase in rates of psychotic symptoms after the start of regular use," Fergusson said, "with daily users of cannabis having rates that were over 150 percent those of non-users."
The reason for this increase in risk? "[T]he weight of the evidence clearly suggests that the use of cannabis (and particularly the heavy use of cannabis) may alter underlying brain chemistry and precipitate the onset of psychosis/psychotic symptoms in vulnerable individuals," the study said.
Fergusson examined the possibility that the link could have resulted because people with psychotic episodes might be more likely to use marijuana in the first place. However, the study concluded that "the predominant direction of causality is likely to involve a path from cannabis use to psychotic symptoms rather than a path from psychotic symptoms to cannabis use."
This article appeared in the May 2005 issue of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association.
