Duke Research Breaks Down Teen Drug Use

A new study from Duke University sheds more light on teen drug use. Researchers found Native American youths have the highest rate of drug use followed by whites, Latinos, African Americans and Asians. Dan Blazer is a professor of psychiatry at Duke and senior author on the study. He says drugs are a serious problem among 12 to 17 year-olds.

Dan Blazer: "I think the surprise for us was the low rate that we saw among African Americans relative to the other groups. But I think the other not so much a surprise, but a concern is just the overall frequency of both use among these adolescents who are not supposed to be using any of these drugs, and the relatively high rate of abuse among those who actually use the drugs."
Blazer says he hopes the findings will lead to better treatment programs to help young people get off drugs.