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Family Problems Lead Boys to Try Drugs, With Girls it's Genetic,
Study Says
by Joseph Brean, National Post, July 28, 2003
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Teenaged boys tend to experiment with drugs because of family
dysfunction or peer pressure, but drug use in girls is more
sensitive to genetic factors, according to a sweeping study of
American teens.
The findings call into question whether the same tactics should
be used to prevent drug abuse in boys and girls, the authors
say, and also provide new insight into the chicken and egg
problem of mental illness and drug use.
"In girls, there was a significant genetic influence on all
substance abuse in adolescence," said Judy Silberg, the lead
author of the study on more than 1000 teenagers in Virginia.
"There was no significant effect of the genes on drug use in
boys."
That this difference -- between the natural drug user and the
nurtured -- can be drawn along gender lines runs counter to the
prevailing wisdom of drug prevention policy, which tends to
paint boys and girls as similar in their drug experimentation --
girls are just a couple of years behind. By the end of high
school, most studies have shown the two sexes to be almost neck
and neck.
For this reason, education and prevention programs have tended
to treat boys and girls as being at equal -- and similar -- risk
of drug problems.
Dr. Silberg said her study shows the sexes should be treated
differently, though. Girls' anti-social behaviors should be
targeted directly, she said, while treatment for boys ought to
focus on "altering those family and peer characteristics that
are most influential."
The study looked at 629 pairs of twins over several years
through childhood into adolescence in Virginia; the twins
allowed for a valuable comparison between siblings who have
identical genes but different life experiences and social
environments.
The findings also have implications for the study of mental
illness in teens, the authors say, because of the link they
provide between early drug use and depression.
The problem of drug use and depression is often addressed by
clinicians under the assumption that depressed people use drugs
in an attempt at self-medication, with mental illness as the
underlying cause of the drug use.
The findings among the female teens, however, suggest early drug
use predicts depression much more reliably than vice versa.
In boys, environmental factors like family and friends seemed to
be at the root of both depression and drug use; there was no
clear evidence that the drugs were leading to depression or,
conversely, that depression led them to use drugs.
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