Green Teen
Teens will be teens! While parents seem to understand this, the motivation behind adolescent action is dubious. In fact, it is not the raging hormones that make teenagers do what they do, but rather the teen brain itself. The issue becomes of paramount importance when focus is directed at teen driving and the influence of alcohol, substance abuse, and cellular telephone usage on its performance and dangers. Biology and physiology don’t lie, and brain scans indicate that the adolescent brain undergoes a thinning of the gray matter or thinking part of the brain around puberty. While motor and sensory areas of the teen brain, as well as reward centers, mature early, the areas of a teenager’s brain controlling plans, decision-making, and impulses and emotions remain immature until the middle 20s. Voilà, parents, educators, and the general public at large are faced with a potential recipe for disaster when the immaturity of the teenage brain, a propensity for high-risk behaviors and potential substance abuse, and the inexperience of adolescent drivers are all combined. So, how does this all translate? The KISS (“Keep it simple, Stupid!”) principle, in this particular case, leaves no room for misinterpretation when it states that teen brain changes can result in high-risk behaviors, substance abuse, and mental illness, that control over high-risk behaviors is still maturing during the teenage years, and that over 2.7 million children and adolescents suffer from behavioral or emotional ills.
The statistics are sobering! Each year 5,000 teens die in automobile accidents, and 400,000 are seriously injured. Teenagers are only 10% of the U.S. population, but account for 12% of all fatal car crashes. It is as if Russian roulette is being played on our roads, with 16-19-year-olds four times more likely than others to “crash and burn,” and with risk of a car crash highest during the first year of driving. Teenagers cost society 30% or $26 billion in annual automobile costs. This fact must be impressed upon them, and the only way to do so and put the financial downside in perspective is by comparison with something teens know and love dearly, namely the cost of a Microsoft Xbox® or a Sony PlayStation®.
Machismo and machines don’t mix, but try telling that to a teenager. If he or she gives you the time of day, you can explain that teenage drivers are more likely to speed, tailgate, and drive hazardously. Will teens listen, however? There seems to be a gender difference also, with teen male drivers 1.5 times more likely than teen females to die in automobile accidents. In these days of “super-sizing” and everything being bigger in Texas, teens are as likely to run into the jaws of life as they are to jaw a quarter-pounder in a fast-food joint. It is a well-known fact that adolescents have the lowest rate of seatbelt use. Statistics demonstrate that of 15-20-year-old male drivers killed in auto accidents, 38% were speeding and 24% were drinking and driving. Male teen “co-pilots” who egg the young driver on make matters no easier!
We are faced with what might be called the “booze blues,” although this is no light matter, by any means. The numbers bear this out. Seventy percent of high school seniors have been found to use alcohol in the previous year. Twenty-three percent of 15-20-year-old drivers who die in car crashes have blood alcohol contents greater than or equal to 0.08, which is comparable to four drinks. Of teen drivers killed in auto crashes after drinking and driving, 74% did not wear seatbelts. And if all this were not bad enough, 33% of teenagers report riding with teen drivers who drink, and 10% drive themselves while drinking. That will certainly give mothers and fathers out there something to think about!
We’ve all heard the expression that a brain is a terrible thing to waste, and nowhere is this idiom more applicable than in consideration of the wasted potential of the teenage brain. Studies show that the adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of alcohol and other drugs and to addiction later in life, and more so than the brains of people not using such substances before age 21. We can only say “holey smoke” at this, as we learn that large amounts of alcohol close up blood vessels in the brain, causing brain cells to die in decision-making areas and resulting in “dead spots,” craters, or holes. Future shock is a terrible thing, and getting an early jump on the future is not always a good idea, especially when it comes to the devastating effects of alcohol consumption. Teenage binge drinking causes the brain to become inflamed and lose cells, with massive brain shrinkage and behavioral problems arising later in life, as a result. Even the gladiators and charioteers of Ancient Rome knew better than to drink “vino” before battle or high-speed races, which is more than can be said for their modern-day counterparts!
And lest we forget the “green, green grass of home” and the almighty cellular, we are once again confronted with a brick wall. Cars are the second most popular place for smoking marijuana, and more than 2.9 million driving-age teens have reported lifetime use of marijuana. In 2005, more than 750,000 16-17-year-olds reported driving under the influence of illicit drugs, with 1 in 6 teens (15%) reporting driving under the influence of marijuana, and 16% under the influence of alcohol. Driving and talking on a cell phone is still another major distraction and possible cause of car crashes, no less serious than substance abuse. Drivers who use a wireless telephone while driving can lose situational awareness and experience inattention blindness. Parents who give their teens cellulars and teenagers themselves must come to grips with the fact that automobile accidents are the leading cause of death in 15-20-year-olds. Drastic steps, measures, and laws are, indeed, warranted!
If parents and teenagers cannot police themselves, then local, state, and federal authorities must intervene to administer acute and chronic remedies that go far beyond provision of a symbolic Band-Aid®. Current proposals have run the gamut from graduated driver licensing laws and nighttime restrictions, comprehensive underage drinking and driving laws, and restrictions on the number of teen passengers traveling with young novice drivers to restrictions on the use of cell phones, education of parents on the impairment of concentration, coordination, perception, and reaction time for up to 24 hours with marijuana, and national anti-drug media campaigns referring specifically to drugged driving.
Teens are “green,” but the brutal reality of the matter is that we’d rather have them green with envy than green and six feet under!
ã 2009, Albert M. Balesh, M.D. All rights reserved.
posted by Dr. Al at
12/13/2009 05:19:00 PM
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