Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner reporter
A survey of schools nationwide is showing an increase in the number of girls consuming drugs and an overall decline in substance abuse among boys.
The survey, conducted by the National Council on Drug Abuse in 2006, reports the gender gap has narrowed significantly since 1987, bringing lifetime usage of illegal drugs to near equal proportions for both males and females.
Lifetime use of illegal drugs stood at 44.4 per cent for males in 2006, the report states, while females report a lifetime usage of 43.8 per cent. Lifetime usage means the drug was used at some stage during their lifetime.
Boys still lead girls
Though boys continue to lead girls in the abuse of drugs, when compared to the last report produced in 1997, there is an increase in the use of all drugs for females.
Among boys, on the other hand, there is less abuse of all drugs, except for inhalants and stimulants, where an increase was reported over 1997.
The lifetime use of inhalants, which include household solvents, nail polish, floor polish, corrective fluid and gasolene, increased by 6.7 percentage points to 21.8 per cent between the periods surveyed. Abuse of such products by girls increased from 16.4 per cent to 34.2.
Most girls said they were pressured by their peers to use the drugs, the council says; but stress relief and relaxation were other reasons given for drug use, the researchers add.
Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner, director of information and research at the council, Ellen Campbell Grizzle, says a likely explanation for the narrowing of the gap between the genders is the fact that nearly all preventative and counselling measures have been designed to target the male population.
"We now have to be recalibrating our prevention work to also target females. Primarily, most of the work up to three years ago was targeting males," she admits.
Though preventative measures for adolescents are inadequate nationally, Campbell Grizzle says, most are aimed at males, and more male role models are available than females.
gareth.manning@gleaner jm.com
