Paul Coverdell: “recently the Senate has made strong statements promoting efforts to fight against teenage drug use. Programs to mobilize…”

“recently the Senate has made strong statements promoting efforts to fight against teenage drug use. Programs to mobilize America's parents are desperately needed in these efforts as we struggle to deal with a rising epidemic of teenage drug use. Survey after survey has shown a shocking rise in teenage drug use. Since 1992, drug use among teens has more than doubled. We recently learned that for the first time since the 1980's over half of all graduating high school seniors will have been involved with illegal drugs and the use of heroine and marijuana by high schoolers has reached levels unprecedented in the 1990's. The number of 8th graders who have used marijuana in the past month has exploded since 1991, growing by over 350%, and heroine use in our high schools has doubled. The fact that 35.8% (or more than one out of every three high school seniors) used marijuana in the past year should be a wake up call to us all, as marijuana serves as a gateway to the use of cocaine, LSD, heroin and other highly addictive drugs. Overall, this is a complete reversal from the previous 12 years when teen drug use was cut in half between 1980 and 1992. A decade of progress has been destroyed. Yet in spite of these alarming statistics, research conducted by the National Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education [PRIDE] shows that 7 out of 10 American parents are not talking to their children about the dangers of drug use.”