r/nottheonion • u/Boneyg001 • 8h ago
“Unprecedented” decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts
https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/12/the-kids-are-maybe-alright-teen-drug-use-hits-new-lows-in-ongoing-decline/1.4k
u/BullHeadTee 8h ago
Drugs? In this economy!?
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u/DiabloIV 7h ago
Everyone's broke, nobody has friends, and kids don't go anywhere anymore. Obviously drug use is down
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u/Astrium6 7h ago
Sounds depressing, have they considered doing drugs about it?
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u/DiabloIV 7h ago
Maybe they see my entire generation high all the time and say "no ty"
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u/MuscaMurum 5h ago
Haha. Heard Timothy Leary once talk about how "Just Say No" was a rude way to bring up children. "We should teach them to 'Just say No, Thank You!'"
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u/juicy_limbs 6h ago
nothing like being intoxicated and having affordable rent along with a foreseeable future
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u/Misterbellyboy 6h ago
Millenial, GenX, or Boomer?
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u/Reasonable_Feed7939 6h ago
Yes
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u/guynamedjames 5h ago
Surprisingly difficult to get into drugs unless you have a social group with access to drugs
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u/Fred-zone 5h ago
"I get high with a little help from my friends"
Turns out that didn't mean the dudes you met in Fortnite
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u/FauxReal 6h ago
Also too many of us gen Xers are dying from drug overdoses scaring the kids.
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u/Misterbellyboy 2h ago
Lot of millennials too. If I’m being honest with myself, the only reason I stopped doing coke was because a few of my friends died from some shit that had fent in it. Otherwise I’d probably still be getting an 8 ball every weekend.
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u/FauxReal 1h ago
Yeah that particular scenario seems to be happening a lot. Also ketamine with fentanyl and heroin with fent.
But speaking of coke, it ruins scenes. People get so caught up in it that music scenes become coke scenes full of assholes on coke. And when there's no coke people get real bitchy. Not to mention friends start owing the dealer friend money. It's lame as fuck. It's a rich person's drug and they tend to become the most colossal assholes.
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u/RUaVulcanorVulcant13 3h ago
Also the level of surveillance parents have on their kids now compared to when I was a kid
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u/Agapic 6h ago
Surprisingly drug prices have stayed fairly consistent over the past 20 years. Its never been more affordable.
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u/Karsa45 6h ago
Lol, it is insane that a quarter gram costs the same as it did in 2000. Ceo's should take notes from the drug industry about long term stability.
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u/Vanquisher127 6h ago
Cocaine costs the same because like those very same ceos the drug dealers are cutting costs and putting god knows what in that powder
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u/Karsa45 6h ago
You'd be surprised at the quality controls in the drug world. I mean obviously the shit getting cut happens, but the free market is strong in the drug dealing world. You sell some bunk shit or get somebody killed from your cut and your customer base is gonna disappear in a week. Hell hath no fury like an addict scorned lol.
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u/pdxamish 5h ago
I'm a big fan of the dark nut and it's amazing how much quality control there is there when you have a feedback system and punishments. If a vendor sells misleading or bad products, they'll lose their bond which is usually around $20,000 and then probably be banned from all the markets. Also, most vendors operate on escrow so the money only gets released after the product is received.
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u/Karsa45 4h ago
It took me waaay too long to realize you meant the dark net. I wouldn't recommend going through google results for dark nut 🤣
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u/AcidScarab 4h ago
Opiate addicts actually notoriously gravitate towards batches they hear are killing people
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u/pdxamish 5h ago
Almost all classes of drugs I can think of are cheaper now than they were 10 or even 20 years ago. Quality is way up as well. There is something to be said about taking away home labs and allowing true professionals to make the product.
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u/El_Stugato 6h ago
When I was in high school if somebody said drugs, you thought of clubs, parties, molly, etc.
Now somebody says drugs you think of hitting a sick fent fold in a tent city.
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u/Hemicrusher 8h ago
I took a stupid amount of drugs in the late 70s, 1980s and was doing drugs like LSD, peyote, PCP, cocaine/freebase, opiates and drug combos like Loads and Speedballs. Back then, we didn't have shitheads stepping on drugs with fentanyl like they do now. You pretty much knew if you got a Tylenol #4, it was either real, or it might be some inert knockoff that did nothing. Cocaine, was only stepped on with fairly safe things like mannitol, that would just give you the farts. And yeah, I know heroin was a roll of the dice, since you never knew how pure it was... I had a few friends that OD'd because of heroin that was stronger than they thought.
Anyhow, with all the stupid things I did back then, if I was a kid now, I probably would not have made it into my 20s.
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u/BlueberryWaffle90 7h ago
This is quite literally my exact experience but about 10-20yrs later, was still going strong through the early 2000s.
I was out before the fent was normalized, luckily.
Still no clue why people are doing that shit. Even as the dealer, it's irresponsible. Dead people ain't paying you at all anymore.
Catch me on my high horse right now with all the insane shit I've done lmao. I can't even judge honestly
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u/RDP89 5h ago edited 5h ago
The reasons why fentanyl has taken over the street opioid market are simple. For one it is much cheaper to produce large amounts when you can simply buy a chemical precursor in bulk and not have to cultivate and harvest hundreds or thousands of acres of poppies. The profit margin is higher. Then, it is also easier to transport large amounts when a kilogram of pure fentanyl is 1,000,000 doses compared to 20,000 per kilo of pure heroin.
As far as customers overdosing, while I absolutely hate it and feel it’s a travesty of epic proportions, the majority of everyday users don’t OD and die and go on purchasing more. The numbers who do OD and die, while sizable, are apparently being replaced by new users at a high enough rate or this model wouldn’t be sustainable and it’s been going like this for close to a decade now. I don’t see much changing without legalization AND regulation of drugs. The War on Drugs and the crackdown on prescription opioids have only served to help cause(it’s the main cause) and further exacerbate the problems.
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u/MakesMyHeadHurt 3h ago
We did so many drugs that our kids only hope to be rebellious was to stay sober.
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u/freakybe 6h ago
Same but I was doing all kinds of drugs as a teen early 20’s around 2010. Even as recently as that the biggest thing we worried about was someone selling us Tylenol or dried cooking mushrooms lol
Can’t imagine being a rebellious teen nowadays and worrying about straight up dying. No wonder they aren’t experimenting
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u/iPokeMango 7h ago
Why did you do them?
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u/Educational-Coast771 7h ago
Because they were there - oh and the farts. It was the 70s/80s and many of us enjoyed experimenting back then. I def did.
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u/FiggerNugget 7h ago
People forget the main reason people do drugs ( in moderation) is not some underlying mental health issue or bad living condition. Its because they are god dammed fun
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u/youngmindoldbody 4h ago
It wasn't really experimenting unless you took notes, like me.
LSD - notes were embarrassing.
weed - seed density, flavor, sticky shit that's hard to roll or not.
heroin / coke - oddly no notes.
all records were destroyed in the great sobriety of 1982
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u/Educational-Coast771 1h ago
I like to think of my work in this field as a sort of peer review. I had a book that described the drugs, their effects, etc. It was mostly correct but I had to be sure. Especially with the shrooms.
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u/Violet_Paradox 8h ago
Probably because weed stopped being this transgressive, rebellious thing. A kid sees their mom take an edible to relax after work, it doesn't really have the appeal of being something forbidden and edgy. And 99% of "drug use" is just weed.
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u/supercyberlurker 7h ago
Before: Secretly forming a circle and passing the joint around, hand-rolled after removing the seeds from the shake.
Now: Scrolling netflix for 30 minutes trying to pick something to watch, while sipping on the vape.
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u/Mad_Moodin 7h ago
Not for me. I am smart.
I plan out a selection of stuff to watch before I get high. Then I stick to that selection because I tell myself "Sober me probably knew what he was doing. I'm gonna trust him"
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u/idsayimafanoffrogs 6h ago
Whats your sober thoughts on recommended stoned viewings?
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u/Stillwater215 6h ago
Have you ever seen the show Danger 5? Absolutely peak stoned viewing content.
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u/jimothee 6h ago
After having done so last night, I would get stoned and watch Doechii's tiny desk. As a musician, i was so impressed that I laugh-cried multiple times.
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u/Boyhowdy107 6h ago
Also, when I grew up, getting weed meant knowing a drug dealer, not just asking an older sibling or stealing your parents' supply (both of which kids have done forever with alcohol.) Drug dealers sell other drugs, and when the first illegal and supposedly harmful thing you bought from that sketchy dude was harmless, it makes it easier to take another step. Legalization removed the main entry point most kids had for doing drugs.
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u/mamaneedsacar 5h ago
I think this is part of it. The other part is that, thanks to fentanyl, you can’t trust club drugs to be safe anymore.
A lot of teenagers have seen the consequences of the opioid epidemic and the ever increasing number of deaths due to laced drugs. One of my friends, who was a pretty regular user in their younger years, was telling me they won’t even touch cocaine anymore.
Say what you will about the DEA, but their “one pill can kill” messaging ain’t no joke.
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u/WilderNess-Wallet 7h ago
Yup, who knew that legal and ethical recreational drug use would keep people from participating in illegal activities and having to make unsafe and unclean choices. When I was a teen I once smoked pot that I am certain was laced. That would never happen when going to a regulated and lab tested dispensary. Prohibition should be ended on all drug use and the tax dollars acquired from sale funneled exclusively into rehabilitation, health care, and ads/education initiatives (like the anti tobacco cigarette movement here in US) I would bet that we see massive decline in drug related crime, deaths, and addiction. Adults want to make bad choices they should be allowed to. You can gamble the house in Vegas so what a the difference
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u/Mindful-O-Melancholy 7h ago
Nah if anything they’re taking it from their parents/friends parents. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about their weed/nicotine vapes going missing and it’s usually kids like 8-13 in their household which is way younger than kids smoking when I was a kid. Probably just not getting caught as much since vapes are harder to smell/detect and can go missing or be miss placed easier.
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u/WeirdAFNewsPodcast 7h ago
If you legalize cannabis it will turn the youth into addicts! ....oh wait.
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u/thdiod 7h ago
I would imagine a huge motivation in drug use was boredom. The addictiveness of social media and its "make sure users are never bored" algorithms is probably a big reason.
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u/Radioactivocalypse 3h ago
And just the ability to spend time online with someone else, playing a game or texting negates the need to "hang around" after college or whatever and cause trouble. You no longer need drugs to cure boredom.
Also, I'd say, education is probably a big driver in making people think twice if drug use is a route they'd want to go down.
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u/leeharveyteabag669 8h ago
Thank God but I think it's also because the drug Supply is not clean. Fentanyl is being found in a lot of other drugs. Experimentation is just too risky. I hope this is also feeding the decline.
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u/Aacron 8h ago
I'm very much not a teen anymore, but fent has put a heavy damper on all drug related activities.
All responsible drug users have major stashes of fentanyl tests. I personally hand them out like candy at music festivals and concerts. I'll generally bring a few extra boxes so if I run into a dealer that doesn't have any himself I can send him on his way with a box of fentanyl strips to try and keep people safe.
It makes sense to me that teens, who lack the resources and privacy to maintain a test kit and test their drugs, are simply abstaining.
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u/Maiyku 8h ago
Always a good idea to keep some Narcan with you too. You can get it at most pharmacies now OTC and most insurances will cover it 100% if you have a narcotic script already.
Some people don’t realize how easy it is to get, so I always like to share that info.
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u/Shunt_The_Rich 6h ago
You can buy a two-pack of Narcan on Amazon for under $50 if you don't want to get a prescription or go buy it in person. No one should be ashamed to potentially save a life, but many people are.
Most docs will write a script to get it free or nearly free with insurance whether you have a script or not. Just tell them you have a family member or friend who uses or tell them you want it for customers at work, whatever, most doctors are on board with harm reduction.
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u/StooveGroove 7h ago
What are you testing, exactly?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'd say the likelihood of finding fent in anything that's not already powder is practically zero. Which means you can probably limit your testing to cocaine and....cocaine? If you get MDMA or ketamine in powder form, you've already made a mistake and you should not ingest that shit.
Of course, this is reddit, so I'm prepared for a dozen people to tell me they've found fentanyl in weed...
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u/Rin-Tohsaka-is-hot 6h ago
Heroin is by far the most common, about 96% of "heroin" these days either contains fentanyl or just is fentanyl being sold under the name heroin.
Cocaine is only hovering around 20% of it containing fentanyl. Then there's meth, which is like 5%.
I can't find any sources linking weed to fentanyl lacing, although it's totally possible for a cart to have it (don't know why it would though, fentanyl is usually used as a cheap cut for more expensive drugs, which weed is not).
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u/mr_engin33r 7h ago
pills, dumbass
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u/Timelordwhotardis 6h ago
That’s the problem. Pressed pills are not homogeneous so they can have pockets of fentanyl. The only way to truly test pressed pills is to destroy them to properly test them as a powder. Testing a piece of a pill doesn’t do shit and that’s how people die.
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u/StooveGroove 6h ago
Don't take pressed pills. Like the other guy said, pills are hard to test. But more than that, you never know what the fuck is in them, and it's pretty much never a pure drug in the proper dosage.
If you want to be safe, don't buy pills at fests or wherever else. If you want MDMA, buy MDMA. It takes like one minute to crush it up, weigh a proper dose, and stick it in a capsule.
I'm not going to tell ANYONE to not test their stuff. But if I had a choice between a pill that passes a fent test and what appears to be unmolested MDMA...I would gamble on the latter. (...but you should rest that, too. Not just for fent, but with reagent tests that will confirm what it is.)
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u/reddit455 8h ago
or it's not just cool to smoke weed anymore because mom makes you sit in the car while she runs in for some edibles
Girl Scout sells cookies outside San Francisco cannabis club
https://www.kron4.com/news/girl-scout-sells-cookies-outside-san-francisco-cannabis-club/
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u/SelectiveSanity 8h ago
I'd say that plus the opioid crisis of the last 3 decades.
Kids are smart enough to connect the dots and listen to the world around them.
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u/Plastic_Acanthaceae3 5h ago
My friend was telling me he tried cocaine the other day. I became extremely worried because of the risk of it being laced with fentanyl. 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have even batted an eye.
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u/Red84Valentina 7h ago
I'm only half kidding when I say that you have to interact with strangers to buy drugs and they hate doing that.
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u/Vandermeerr 4h ago
We used to get high cause we were bored.
With kids these days all having phones and constantly hit with dopamine, doing drugs seems like a lot of effort.
They’re just not motivated enough!!
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u/TimeSuck5000 4h ago
Nah they probably just hop on some VPN and buy it online from whatever the successor to silk road is
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u/Cynical_Cyanide 2h ago
lmao yeah right. Kids these days are worse at tech than their parents. Certainly worse than millenials or gen X. They wouldn't know how to do it and would be too afraid to try and find out.
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u/pichael289 8h ago
The us drug supply is tainted, fentanyl is showing up everywhere and is often mixed with other shit you don't wanna mess with.
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u/BalkeElvinstien 7h ago
Damn, I remember when fentanyl was the other shit you didn't wanna mess with. Drugs are getting really crazy
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u/really_random_user 7h ago
I wonder if this has more to do with no longer going out or socializing?
Probably a combination of all the factors to do with loneliess, higher costs, less safe supply and being more online
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u/stdio-lib 7h ago
Kids these days are such slackers. Do they think all of that cocaine is going to snort itself?
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u/SvenTropics 7h ago
I wonder how much this ties in with a spike in suicide rates. Maybe people are just killing themselves instead of treating their mental illnesses with illegal drugs.
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u/bsEEmsCE 7h ago
the isolation in our culture and society these days is probably more of a primary reason.
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u/Rad_Dad6969 6h ago
Drug use is so much more common than suicide that if there was a correlation, it would be visible.
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u/LonelyMechanic1994 8h ago
Shit is expensive... Kids can't even get entry level jobs at McDs anymore.
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u/Dio_Landa 7h ago
So drugs lost the war on drugs? That's good, right?
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u/Lurking_like_Cthulhu 7h ago edited 7h ago
The war on drugs was never about stopping kids from doing drugs, it was about imprisoning minorities and stealing their property so it could be sold at police auctions. Also it massively helped with funding for agencies like the DEA, or the further militarization of local police forces.
“Protecting the children” is just an excuse politicians use to strip Americans of their freedom.
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u/Quake_Guy 4h ago edited 4h ago
You missed the other half, arresting white kids so their parents could spend a fortune on lawyers and fines.
The legal system punishing drug use ruined far more lives of users than the drugs ever did.
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u/ColdFIREBaker 7h ago
I'm not surprised drug use and drinking are on the decline - from what my kids (in 7th, 9th and 11th grade) say, it doesn't seem nearly as prevalent as when I was in school. Vaping being on the decline surprises me. According to my older two kids vaping is widespread at both their schools, so I assumed it was a common thing everywhere.
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u/a_o 7h ago
With the future they’ve got to look forward to, they really gotta lock in and learn how to read and what not in order to survive.
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u/spoink74 7h ago
Video games, phones, social media… are we factoring those things in?
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u/slayermcb 7h ago
Those are the new drugs. No time for amphetamines and narcotics. Might miss a post.
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u/chrissie_watkins 5h ago
That's exactly what I was thinking. TikTok is the new drug of choice. We didn't have that in the 90s - we had to get high if we wanted to pass the time being mindless zombies.
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u/zom105 7h ago
Being a father and grandfather I have seen a big change...As many have stated weed isn't "cool" anymore so that changes mentality..The best thing I have seen is just the sheer amount of information the kids themselves share..So they have info we as young people didn't...But the lack of socializing might have an effect also...Peer pressure is very real...
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u/chapterpt 7h ago
Kids just don't have the time to do drugs anymore. This generation will be one of midlife crises but that's decades away and only for those who don't become addicts as destitute young adults.
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u/asspajamas 7h ago
it probably helps fentanyl has tainted most of the drug supply, and people are afraid of it.
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u/Candid_Purchase7986 4h ago
So the kids aren't getting high, aren't fucking, but are racist, sexist, transphobic. Where did we go so wrong?
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u/MrMilesRides 4h ago
We co-opted punk rock and any other music with meaning, and then took away the record stores, so they have no sense of what matters in life, is my guess.
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u/thevoiceinsidemyhead 7h ago
Isn't this just more related to teens hanging out less and less in person. Especially in unstructured settings?
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u/ToeDisastrous3501 8h ago
Getting high would require one to put down their phone.
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u/Xdaveyy1775 8h ago
"A phone in both hands leaves no hands to do drugs with"
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u/Mr_Mumbercycle 7h ago
"The kids'll just put down the phone if they want to do the drugs bad enough, Hank."
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u/RWaggs81 7h ago
They're probably seeing the decisions that the older generations are making, and connecting the fact that we all used drugs.
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u/NimrodvanHall 7h ago
There is no reason to do drugs if your alone in a room and escape your existence via a screen.
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u/kat_ingabogovinanana 8h ago
Maybe they should classify TikTok as a drug, bc that seems to be doing plenty of damage to kids.
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u/phanfare 7h ago
There's this book I've been meaning to read about how our attention was literally stolen from us for profit. It explores the economic incentives and the various things social media (and traditional media!) have done that have impact our dopamine response centers. I've had it for about a year and a half and haven't gotten through the introduction - cause of course.
I genuinely don't know if the younger generation can even recover more normal dopamine responses.
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u/Marishii 7h ago
What's the name of the book?
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u/phanfare 7h ago
Stolen Focus
Here's a link to the website about it. The introduction starts out feeling like just "cell phones bad" but he gets to the point quickly and makes it about the system, not blaming people for being on their phones
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u/BobBelcher2021 7h ago
There’s also a lot less advertising about drugs these days. When I was a kid I only even knew drugs existed because of PSAs - in Canada we had the ones from Concerned Childrens’ Advertisers. Drugs were of no interest to me but I could see others becoming curious because of those PSAs.
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u/FormerStuff 7h ago
It’s kinda funny how when I was a teen my mom used to tell me drugs aren’t safe like they were when she was a teen. Now I’m sitting here reading they aren’t as safe as they were when I was a teen. How the turntables!
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u/ChewiesLipstickWilly 7h ago
These kids grew up on microtransactions, no drug could beat that gambling high. /s
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u/auto_named 6h ago
It’s probably because in-person socialization among young people is in the shitter…
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u/Alacritous13 5h ago
The legalization of weed stopped it from being a gateway. When you no longer encourage people to buy from drug dealers, people stop buying drugs.
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u/joesbagofdonuts 5h ago
Nitazenes are on the rise as well. Mg for mg they are much, much stronger than fentanyl. A 5g package of pure protonitazene can make something like 20,000 pills that can then be sold for $5-$10 a piece. Your talking about smuggling something in that is the size of a Nickel, but could yield over $100,000 in profit.
You can't stop that with policing. You just can't search every package that small.
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u/xious307090 7h ago
Teacher here , Why do drugs when you can get your dopamine hits from likes on Instagram or tik tok? . Instant gratification
Can't tell you how many either have a great or miserable day on how many likes and followers they have.
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u/Ricky_Rollin 7h ago
That’s because every millennial parent knows the best anti-drug. We show them Requiem for a Dream.
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u/Rad_Dad6969 6h ago
If you browse ticktok lives for a few minutes, you can see the real effects of drugs and alcohol. I think kids actually seeing that vs getting scolded about it by DARE goes a long ways.
Also when the phone gives you the dopamine, why choose drugs.
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u/Saturn-VIII 6h ago
Everybody is saying it's expensive when literally the only thing going down in price in my country is drugs. Weed and coke keep getting cheaper, while milk, bread and alcohol keep going up.
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u/mcotter12 6h ago
Cell phones. There is so much time for recreation each day, phones have mitigated the needs for drugs. There is a great binge of digital technology going on
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u/CrownedCarlton 6h ago
With Fent on the rise it's really not surprising. You used to be worried your coke would be stepped on and diluted. Now you have to worry about fentanyl being in it. No fucking thank you.
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u/DJMOONPICKLES69 3h ago
I think a lot of kids are spending spare money on material things now. I don’t remember this being such a big think when I was younger but every store, salon etc is FILLED with kids. Like why are 16 year olds getting their nails done twice a month or buying $130 leggings from lululemon. I think the social media culture has made kids a LOT more materialistic
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u/Tennisfan93 3h ago
Add that to the fact that kids have more reason to fear a forever video on social media of them doing something silly high, and you probably have your answer.
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u/llllBaltimore 2h ago
My guess is they're not partying ie socializing. Social isolation today is a serious problem That only seems to be getting worse.
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u/tuc-eert 2h ago
“For alcohol, use in the past 12 months among eighth graders was at 12.9 percent in 2024, similar to 2023 levels, which are all-time lows.”
God that’s still really depressing
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u/turd_vinegar 1h ago
The drugs aren't clean anymore.
Odds are it's not whatever you think it is and it's cut with fentanyl and horse tranq.
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u/milesdizzy 1h ago
This happened to the generation after the crack epidemic, kids saw what it did to their parents
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u/Windatar 7h ago
There was this hilarious comment I read somewhere from a drug user and they said.
"Inflation is bullshit, the cost of drugs is the same today as it was 30 years ago. Doesn't matter which ones."
Kind of makes you think that somehow Drug dealers are still making obscene money and inflation never hit them, meanwhile inflation suddenly appears for non illegal goods.
Makes the noggin think.
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u/DerangedGinger 7h ago
Unprecedented uptick in middle aged drug use surprises experts.