Drug Abuse on the Rise Among Boomers

Boomers Getting Stoned. Boomers who "turned on, tuned in and dropped out" in the seventies are now feuling the rise in drug use among 50-59 year olds.

By Gary Geyer

The Facts:

The government reported that 4.4 percent of baby boomers, ages 50 to 59 admitted to using illicit drugs in the past month. Is this a good percentage or one we should worry about?

This number has steadily increased over the past 3 years for the 50+ age group, according to the records of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Surprisingly, it has been exactly the opposite for young teens: illicit drug use for that age group went down for the third consecutive year.

The annual survey provides an important look at how many Americans drink, smoke and use drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Back to the garden

The peak of drug use among youth in the United States occurred in the late 1970s. The so-called “Woodstock Generation” getting older. It appears now that the “kids” bought the weed with them into the new century. Baby boomers who learned to "turn on, tune in, drop out" as teenagers are fueling a rise in illicit drug use among 50- to 59-year-olds.

Marijuana: Still the drug of choice

Drug use by baby boomers increased from 2.7 percent in 2002 to 4.4 percent last year and climbing. Marijuana was by far their drug of choice, accounting for 70% of the boomers illegal drug use. In more than half of those cases, the drugs were provided free from a friend or a relative. Only 4.3 percent reported buying the drug from a drug dealer or some other contact.

There’s further proof of drug abuse among boomers: A growing number of them are showing up for drug abuse treatment. And if that weren’t enough, the median age of overdose deaths is also moving up.

Just saying ‘No’

The ironic part is that a growing number of the children and grandchildren of boomers are not into drugs at all.



Research shows that baby boomers are still carrying with them their

"far out" attitudes from the 60's and 70's. As a result, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that their rates of use were significantly higher compared to the declines among today's teens who are rejecting drug use at higher rates.



Analyzing consequences



The Scripps Howard News Service followed up this trend with a well-researched analysis regarding the consequences of outdated baby boomer attitudes about illegal drug use:



"As America's baby boomers approach senior status, a troubling number are dying from causes that have marked the generation since the 1960s - drug abuse, suicide and accidents.”

An analysis of death records for more than 304,000 boomers who died in 2003 shows the legacies of early and lingering drug use, a tendency toward depression at all stages of life and a stubborn determination not to "act their age."

The study goes on to say that boomers accounted for about half of all people nationwide who died of drug-related causes in 2003. That is far out of proportion to their 26 percent share of the population. Those numbers do not include impaired driving or other accidental causes indirectly related to drug use.

A “Talking Head” has his say

*Dr. Dan Blazer, a Duke University professor of psychiatry, believes he has a “handle” on the problem and asserts: “Since adolescence, they’ve been drinking and using drugs more that previous generations. They’re less likely to have strong religious beliefs, more isolated, twice the divorce rate of the generation before them, and still facing money and work issues they though would be behind them in their 60s.”

The article’s overarching conclusion resides in the headline: “Boomer Doom: Falling Victim to the Culture of Youth.”



*Boomer Blogger Brent Green comments:

There you have it: Boomers were lackadaisical, live-for-today hippies in the sixties; it makes perfect sense that their longstanding self-destructive behaviors would be killing them today.



My point is that there is a longstanding tendency to use the myths and realities of the sixties to cast a uniquely dark and accusatory shadow over the Boomer generation.

The Scripps report, while insightful and helpful on some levels, further perpetuates in its implications the idea that accelerating Boomer mortality is due to inherent and idiosyncratic generational weaknesses. Thus, we’re dying in droves because of drug abuse and perpetuation of our iconoclastic youth culture.

I'm suggesting that we keep these findings in perspective and not be too quick to let selective statistics, subjectively interpreted, stand unchallenged as another covert indictment of the generation and its character. <<


*Excerpted from Brent Green’s Boomer Blog: http://boomers.typepad.com/boomers