Drug Use Grows Among Teen Girls One Reason For Increase May Be Desire To Look Like Thin Models

Young American women are closing a deadly gender gap with men, turning to illegal drugs, tobacco and alcohol at an alarming rate.

Today’s daughters are 15 times likelier than their baby boomer mothers to have begun using illegal drugs by age 15, according to a report being released today by the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

“Substance abuse in women is an enormous crisis for our country, and largely one of neglect,” said Joseph Califano, CASA president.

The 251-page study “Substance Abuse and the American Woman,” conducted during a two-year period and funded by the Bristol Meyers Squibb Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, finds that adolescent girls are just as likely to have used illegal drugs, alcohol or tobacco as their male counterparts.

For adults over 30, the ratio of men to women who used illicit drugs other than marijuana is 1.5 to 1. But for 12-to 18-year-olds, the ratio is 1 to 1.

Califano believes societal pressure to be thin and attractive has a doubly negative effect on girls.

“Young girls smoke to stay thin, and they do drugs like heroin and cocaine for the same reasons,” he said. “On the other hand, they often drink to be popular, or take hard drugs to be a part of the ‘in’ crowd, or to please a boyfriend.”

The report found at least one of every five pregnant women - more than 800,000 a year - smokes, drinks and/or uses drugs.

Tobacco and alcohol are, respectively, the top preventable causes of low birth weight babies and mental retardation in babies.

“The fashion industry is a particular culprit,” Califano said. “On runways across the world, impossibly thin girls send the message that being emaciated is chic.”