Children as young as nine years old are experimenting with alcohol and marijuana and this usage only increases by the time these children enter secondary school.
So states Research and Information Officer at the National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA), Jonathan Yearwood, who spoke to The Barbados Advocate after the Presentation of Key Findings from the Barbados Drug Information Network (BARDIN) 2015 Report and Trends for the Period 2011-2015 yesterday at their headquarters.
He said that research carried out by his organisation showed that just around four to five per cent of the children would have experimented with alcohol before they even left the corridors of their primary school and this number then jumps to 22 per cent by the time they are in secondary school.
The same statistics hold true for the use of marijuana where they found that it increases almost five fold from the time they leave primary school to the time that they enter the gates of their respective secondary schools.
“Well in terms of alcohol, for instance, it is between the ages of nine to 11. From our perspective at the NCSA, persons have experimented with alcohol. Just about four to five per cent – those between the ages of nine to 11 – would have experimented with marijuana. By the time these persons reach the adolescent age, the secondary school age, in terms of experimentation, it would have increased almost five fold in that it would have moved from say four to five per cent experimenting with marijuana to 22 per cent. So you will find that there is a jump in the 9 to 11, which was reported in the 2010 survey; and in 2013 when they reached secondary school, where the age range is from 11 to 17, that 22 per cent of secondary school students would have experimented with marijuana.”
Aside from the obvious health risks associated with the early use of these substances, it is clear that the young brain is more susceptible to things like drug use and this is why you would find that issues such as binge drinking tend to occur more often than not among teenagers rather than adults.
“So here we see a jump at the secondary school, at the teenage level and it supports the efforts of the NCSA to address the use of marijuana from a very early age and not waiting until you reach the problematic age of adolescence where there is additional evidence that shows that the young brain is still maturing and more likely to facilitate the abuse of substances, including alcohol. That is why we have issues pertaining to binge drinking at a very young age more so than the adults.”