Riverside-Brookfield High School students apparently smoke pot, snort cocaine, and drink alcohol more frequently than most students across the nation and in Cook County. That’s the conclusion when the results of an anonymous survey taken last fall at RB are compared to a national survey conducted in 2006 by the University of Michigan and a 2004 survey done by the Illinois Department of Human Resources.
The RB survey asked students about when they first used alcohol and certain drugs and how often they used the substances. In December, the Landmark reported on the first-use data. The school released the data on frequency of use in February.
In the survey, 36 percent of RB seniors reported smoking marijuana at least monthly in their periods of heaviest use while the national survey reported that only 18.3 percent of 12th-graders reported smoking marijuana in a 30-day period, according to the Monitoring the Future survey conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Some 21.9 percent of surveyed seniors in Cook County reported smoking pot monthly in 2004, according to the state survey.
At RB, 58 percent of seniors said they had smoked pot in the past year while just 31.5 percent of surveyed high school seniors nationwide and 35.3 percent of surveyed 12th-graders in Cook County said that they had smoked pot in the previous year.
RB sophomores’ use of marijuana also exceeded national and Cook County averages. Some 28 percent of RB sophomores said they smoked marijuana at least monthly compared to just 14.2 percent of sophomores nationwide and 15.5 percent of sophomores in Cook County. The annual figures for sophomores smoking marijuana was 38 percent at RB compared to 25.2 percent nationwide and 26.1 percent in Cook County.
RB Principal/Superintendent Jack Baldermann said that he is concerned about the drug and alcohol use among RB students, but he said that he felt that drug and alcohol use among RB students was probably similar to that of students other suburban high schools.
“Any use is of concern to us,” said Baldermann. “I think from talking to other administrators, everybody that I know is concerned about this. I don’t believe that we have a bigger problem, but we’re concerned, as all educators are.”
Jim Keck, RB’s drug and alcohol counselor, hired at the start of the school year, cautioned that direct comparisons between surveys can be difficult. Keck said that the purpose of the RB survey was to find out how common substance abuse was among RB students.
The main purpose of the study, Keck said, was to get baseline data so that the effectiveness of RB’s efforts to combat substance use the problem can be measured in the future. Keck emphasized that the purpose of the RB survey was not to draw comparisons to other studies, and that the RB survey’s questions were worded somewhat differently than most substance abuse survey questions.
The RB survey asked students to report their frequency of use of various substances during their period of heaviest use. Most other surveys ask whether someone has used a substance during a specified time period, such as the past 30 days.
But the greater use by RB students compared to national and county averages was even more dramatic involving cocaine than it was for marijuana. Ten percent of RB seniors reported using cocaine monthly, while only 2.5 percent of seniors nationwide reported using cocaine monthly, and 1.3 percent of Cook County 12th-graders reported using cocaine monthly in 2004.
But the overwhelming majority of RB students have never used cocaine. According to the survey, 84 percent of seniors say they have never used cocaine. In addition, 92 percent of juniors, 93 percent of sophomores, and 98 percent of freshmen also reported never having used cocaine.
RB students also seem to be above-average drinkers of alcohol. Sixty percent of RB seniors reported drinking alcohol at least monthly, while 45.5 percent of 12th-graders nationwide report drinking alcohol monthly, and 36.6 percent of Cook County seniors reported drinking alcohol monthly in 2004.
Only 24 percent of RB seniors said that they have never drunk alcohol.
Keck said that the survey shows that it is important to aim substance abuse education at students in their first year or two at RB.
“Things really pick up over the summer between their freshman and sophomore years,” said Keck. “We really have to focus on the freshman and sophomores.”
Not surprisingly, the use of alcohol and drugs increases as kids get older. While 52 percent of freshman said that they have never consumed alcohol, only 24 percent of sophomores can say the same thing.
Marijuana use also steadily increased with age. While only 8 percent of freshman report using marijuana at least weekly, that number increased to 14 percent for sophomores, 17 percent for juniors and 24 percent for seniors.
RB students smoke tobacco less often than they smoke marijuana at RB, but tobacco use is still a problem. Some 47 percent of seniors report having smoked tobacco, compared to just 58 percent who said they have smoked marijuana. Twenty percent of RB seniors say they use tobacco daily.
