What can parents do about teenage drug taking?

Let’s begin with good news. Young people in general are taking fewer drugs:  around 17% of 16–24-year-olds took drugs in 2022–23, compared to 21% in 2019–20. 

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However, such activities may be catastrophic for some teenagers, whose developing adolescent brains may never recover from taking toxic substances.

Understanding the world of drugs is tough. Few parents – certainly not this one – are likely to fully grasp the ever-increasing and changing array of drugs on the market.

Additionally, it is hard to understand why drugs might appeal, and psychologists that I spoke to stressed how complex substance misuse is. Nonetheless, there are some clues about why they appeal to the adolescent brain, which I will discuss in the third blog for my adolescent mental health series.

The Lure of Risk Taking

Firstly, drug-taking is influenced by young people’s economic circumstances and where they live. Whether that is in inner-city poverty, where gangs and drug-taking are commonplace, and young people may have little choice, or in smaller towns, where there is little else to keep young people occupied, especially given the lack of funding for youth services, or among wealthy elites, who have money to burn, literally. Several factors underpin the appeal.

Next, there’s the attraction of something new, illicit and risky. Experimenting with new things and taking risks is normal in teenagers, as the teenage brain is drawn to novelty and risk-taking as they strive for independence and discover who they are.

Then there’s the way drugs may ease the process of finding their tribe and interacting with others. Drugs and drinking may be used by teenagers as ways to reduce anxiety around the social challenges they may encounter, constituting what psychologists call ‘negative coping strategies’. This reflects the tendency of individuals to take on strategies that can lead to negative outcomes when they encounter stress.

For example, a teenager might feel anxious about meeting friends or coping with relationship problems. Others may be suffering from mental health problems. Drugs act as a distraction strategy, so they temporarily feel more carefree, alert or excited, masking the unpleasant emotions.

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Additionally, drugs are easy to get hold of – easier to acquire and cheaper than alcohol in many cases. As one of my teenagers put it to me:

"Parents do not seem to even realize how common it is. It’s so easy on your phone. You just text. It’s like a website. The website puts the name of the drugs, there are lots of emojis. There’s a price list, the numbers of grams. They come in a car, you get in the car with them, exchange the drugs and money. It’s called ‘picking up’. Or you just meet them in the street and just brush hands. It doesn’t feel illegal, or sordid – there’s not a meeting in a shady alleyway."

Perhaps most obviously of all, drugs are pleasurable and addictive. Taking drugs floods the brain with surges of dopamine, creating a desire to repeat the experience. When these behaviours develop into habits, the brain starts to produce less and less dopamine each time, which is why addicts often explain that their drinking or drug use no longer actually provides them with the pleasure that it used to.

If you add together those reasons – the desire for experimentation and acting against parental control, teenagers feeling part of a group, feeling a relief from social anxiety, and that they are easy to get hold of and addictive – it’s no surprise that teenagers can gravitate towards taking drugs of some kind.

You might be thinking, well, I might as well give up then. But no. There are things we can do as parents to make drugs less attractive.

1. Being sympathetic to the pressure they are under

To reduce the appeal of drugs, we can first acknowledge how alluring they are. If we say, ‘Drugs are bad, drugs will kill you’, our teenagers are unlikely to listen. The conversation will be over before it has begun.

Instead, we might say, ‘I understand why you might want to do this.’ We get the pressures they are under. We are trying to establish an authentic connection with them on the topic, through active listening and validating their feelings.

2. Sharing information in a straightforward way

We want to share reasons why drugs are a bad idea in a non-dramatic way that acknowledges our ignorance of specifics, while sharing our broad concerns. For example, the damage they can cause to developing brains, that people can become aggressive when high on drugs and not realize, the danger of getting into debt and crime, and the mental health implications.

Our tone ideally should be one of ‘Let me pass on some information, so you can make good decisions.’ The most effective can be real stories of individuals who took drugs, such as a friend’s child who developed psychosis after taking drugs at a festival.  

The stories are more impactful without any advice from us about the conclusions they might draw.

Sharing the less alluring side of drug-taking can be powerful too. Ketamine, for example, can cause the bladder to shrink to the size of a 4-year-old’s, and lead to a life of incontinence pads. It was this kind of physical detail that made an impact in my own discussions. ‘It’s suddenly not so cool to take something that might make you incontinent,’ one of my teenagers said.

3. Appealing to their desire for autonomy and social justice

We can stress their autonomy, too, taking advantage of their natural desire for independence. They don’t have to do what everyone else does. What strategies can they employ for themselves not to be tempted? We want to position them as responsible and independent.

This approach may appeal to the rebellious side of our teenagers: they may not like the concept that drugs and their dealer could control them, rather than the other way around. Their life could quickly revolve around drugs and making sure they can get them.

We can also appeal to their concern for the environment and social justice. Wide-scale drug production is environmentally damaging. Cocaine production, for example, leads to soil erosion as large areas of forest are cleared for coca cultivation. Additionally, the production of chemical drugs such as crystal meth leads to the dumping of toxic waste.

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Drug-taking also means endorsing an economy that wreaks utter misery on the poorest, most disenfranchised communities. It leads to gun and knife crime, prostitution, gang violence and people smuggling. The same teenagers who support Black Lives Matter may see the hypocrisy involved in their drug-taking, which leads to disproportionate numbers of deaths among young black men.

While in general, young people are taking fewer drugs, substance abuse is a real and present danger. Our best bet is to understand the appeal of drugs and talk openly about the topic in a straightforward, non-judgmental way, trusting our teenagers to work out their own conclusions.

No one likes being bossed around, least of all our adolescents. The more we say "no" to something, the more appealing it becomes. Instead, we can arm them with sensible information, alerting them to the dangers of peer pressure and situations that elicit emotions and arousal. Thus equipped, and knowing their desire for autonomy, they may make better decisions.

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The Gift of Teenagers: Connect More, Worry Less by Rachel Kelly, published by Hachette, is now available at Waterstones, WHSmith, and online.

The audiobook, narrated by Emma Fenney, can be listened to on Audible.