Risk of Drug Abuse High Among Teens in Child Welfare System

Using data from two national surveys, Fettes and colleagues found that 18 percent of teens in the welfare system admitted to ever smoking marijuana, versus 14 percent of other teens. Meanwhile, 12 percent said they'd abused inhalants, compared with 6 percent of other U.S. kids. In addition, although abuse of "hard drugs," like cocaine and heroin, was less common, teens in child welfare were still at greater risk: Six percent admitted to ever using the drugs, versus 4 percent of other teens. The findings are not necessarily surprising, according to Fettes. It's known that kids who enter the child welfare system typically have some risk factors for drug use—such as a history of domestic abuse or mental health issues. But until now, there had been little research into their actual rates of substance abuse, Fettes said. For their study, she and her colleagues culled data from two national health surveys: one covered 730 12- to 14-year-olds in the child welfare system; the other included 4,445 kids the same age from the general U.S. population. Overall, teens in the welfare system were more likely to have tried marijuana, inhalants or hard drugs—but not alcohol. Around 40 percent of kids in each survey admitted to drinking at some point in their lives. That, according to Fettes, may reflect a couple of facts. "Alcohol is readily available to teenagers," she said, "and drinking is something of a normative behavior to them." But whereas drug use was more common among teens in the welfare system, not all of those kids were at equal risk.