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 Middle-schoolers with positive attitudes toward marijuana or recent
alcohol use, for example, were at increased risk of driving under
the influence and riding with drinking drivers as teens, the authors
found.
Regular conversations with adolescents may help parents and
caregivers identify the youngsters who are at risk, said senior
author Elizabeth D'Amico, of the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica,
California.
"It’s out there and around them, and if you keep an open door
they’re going to be able to tell you more and you'll be able to help
them more," D'Amico told Reuters Health.
One in 10 high school students admits to driving under the influence
of alcohol in the past 30 days, according to the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, and one in five has ridden in a car
with a impaired driver.
Most research on those risky behaviors has focused on older
adolescents, which limits the ability to help predict future
behavior, the researchers write in Pediatrics.
For the new study, they used data from nearly 1,100 middle school
students in the greater Los Angeles area who completed surveys in
2009, at an average age of 12, and again in 2011 and 2013.
The analysis only included students who reported using alcohol at
some point.
Those with positive beliefs toward marijuana age at 12, and those
who believed they could resist marijuana, were at an increased risk
of driving while impaired or riding with a drinking driver four
years later.
At age 14, alcohol use within the past month, positive attitudes
toward marijuana, having friends who used alcohol or marijuana and
family marijuana use were all tied to an increased risk of driving
while impaired or riding with a drinking driver at age 16.
D'Amico said pediatricians can easily look for these factors in
young children.
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"I just think there are so many innovative ways to reach youths, and
everybody has to go to the doctor eventually," she said. "Just
asking them about this can be really helpful."
In a previous study that D'Amico led, a small group of adolescents
reported less marijuana use and fewer marijuana-using friends during
six months of follow-up after a 15- to 20-minute chat with a mental
health case manager at a community health clinic, compared to
adolescents who didn't have that chat.
One limitation of the new study is that the researchers didn't ask
about driving while intoxicated specifically for alcohol and
marijuana.
As medical and recreational marijuana use in the U.S. increases, it
will be important to tease the specifics apart, the researchers say.
"My concern just from the work I’ve been doing and being in the
field with youth is that many know they wouldn’t drink and drive,
but they feel marijuana is safer," D'Amico said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1KYo1i4 Pediatrics, online October 5, 2015.
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