According to a recent federal report, Vermont isn’t the one that “takes the cake” but our fair state has the highest percentage of young people who drink alcohol and the second highest percentage of young people who use marijuana. Of course, since our state is so much smaller than, say, Texas, and even than Pennsylvania, we’re not talking about the highest number of people, but we are talking about how many of the people report that they drink or take marijuana.
One has to wonder a little about the surveys though. How many people actually got asked and how many of them answered correctly? Just imagine a group of kids in a school saying, “I’m not telling them anything,” and “if we all say that we don’t it’ll make our parents feel better and worry less and then they are less likely to find out.” Isn’t it possible that the young people in Vermont were just a little braver or just less likely to be concerned about their parents’ opinions? Really, it’s hard to tell.
The survey asked people between the ages of 12 and 20 whether they had consumed any alcohol within the past month. One third of the Vermonters said yes. One-fourth of them admitted to binge drinking, which is defined as five drinks on the same occasion.
This has led Barbara Cimaglio, the deputy commissioner of the alcohol and drug abuse programs for the Vermont Department of Health to say, “We are concerned. We know there is a challenge in front of us.”
Eleven percent of Vermont’s young citizens said that they had used marijuana within the past month. When they asked the 18 to 25 year olds, it rose to 30 percent. This seems only obvious, considering that most kids have very little money to spend before they turn 18. Liquor they might find around their home or a friend’s home, but it’s a little less likely to find weed there, though not impossible, unfortunately.
In fact, some say that the acceptance of drinking and marijuana as normal, every-day adult behavior in this region of the country may explain the experimentation of the kids.
Now if only they could all take a good, hard look at the consequences.
