Top Story: Teen Drug and Alcohol Use Linked to Mental Health Distress

New research has found that teenagers who use cannabis, alcohol and nicotine are more likely to have underlying psychiatric symptoms, much worse than their peers who do not use. The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, found that these substances are linked to several symptoms and conditions such as anxiety, depression, hyperactivity and suicidal ideation.

Dr. Brenden Tervo-Clemmens, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota Medical School and lead author of this paper, spoke to the New York Times about the study and its implications.“Universally screening for psychiatric symptoms in the context of all types of substance use is what we think might be most important. All of the symptoms of mental health we examined, be it depression, suicidal thoughts, ADHD, were elevated no matter what the substance was,” he said.

Dr. Tervo-Clemmens suggests that adolescents with low levels of substance use may be self-medicating and that their relatively modest substance use was not likely to be causing the underlying mental health challenges. But the most intensive and frequent users experienced the most severe mental health issues.

You can read the full article here.