
Drugs don’t just mess with your brain and body, they mess with your life. Behind every statistic are teens who thought, “It won’t happen to me”—but it did. In addition to addiction and other health problems, using drugs can also have real and serious consequences for other aspects of your life. The information below is just a glimpse of their impact.
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Bad Grades |
Violent Behavior |
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Accidental Death
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Blackouts |
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Think About It:
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Could It Happen to You? | |
The “times more likely” examples on these pages compare a teen’s chances of experiencing a particular consequence if a teen uses a specific drug versus a teen not using that drug. |
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Consider the two diagrams to the right. If each banana peel represents a chance to slip, you are three times more likely to slip in the scenario presented in the lower diagram. |
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EVALUATING STATISTICS
If we could see the future with certainty—like with a crystal ball—we would always make good decisions. In the real world, without crystal balls, we have statistics to help us make smart choices. Valid statistics are calculated from studies measuring the behavior of groups of people (the sample) during a defined period of time. With statistics, we can weigh the likelihood of an event happening to us based on the experiences of others. Valid statistics are: The statistics presented on these pages are from health studies that showed how drugs cause harm. Understanding what valid—that is, trustworthy—statistics mean can help us draw important conclusions and make better decisions about our lives. |
Photos: road icon, © S-E-R-G-O/iStockphoto; group of teens, © Monkey Business/Thinkstock; failing grade on test, © Joe Belanger/iStockphoto; roadside memorial, © JG Photography/Alamy; black eye, © iStockphoto/Thinkstock; phone in hand, © iStockphoto/Thinkstock; sneaker illustration, © minimil/iStockphoto; banana peel, © timoph/iStockphoto.
1 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 2006; http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k6/academics/academics.htm
2 SAMHSA, 2006; http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k6/youthViolence/youthViolence.htm
3 Centers for Disease Control, 2012; http://cdc.gov/Vitalsigns/pdf/2012-10-vitalsigns.pdf
4 National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2004; http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-2/186-196.htm