Each generation of young people must, it seems, face its own challenges when it comes to illegal use and abuse of drugs and alcohol.
The Century Star and the Hi Herald, the student newspapers for Bismarck's two public high schools, recently carried extensive packages on drug addiction, teen drinking and drug abuse. The stories were frank in addressing alcohol and drug use by students. Ten years ago those stories likely would not have appeared in a North Dakota high school newspaper, at least not in such an open and direct presentation.
Making choices about whether to use drugs or alcohol as a teenager is a more common occurrence for today's youth. They know more about rehab and treatment than most of their parents. Addiction isn't just some bogeyman used to scare young people, but what some of their classmates have sweated through.
The staff of the Star and Herald did right by their readers and peers.
If there was something startling in these high school newspaper stories, it was the figures from the 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey reported by the Hi Herald. The schools have copies of the results, and the Department of Public Instruction will make it available on its Web site.
* The first surprise is that 17.4 percent of Bismarck students have taken over-the-counter drugs to get high. That compares to 12.4 percent for Fargo students, 11.8 percent for rural North Dakota students and 13.3 percent statewide.
* And, in the four categories cited over-the-counter, use without a doctor's prescription, use of ecstacy and whether students had been offered sold or given an illegal drug students from Bismarck had a higher percentage answering yes than Fargo or the statewide response.
It's a harsh reminder that things can go wrong in River City. And it's a nudge as to the necessary direction of efforts to combat poor choices by students.
Like it or not, for many students today, choices they are forced to make often have more severe consequences than those that faced their parents. Students in middle school today are sometimes confronted by choices that their parents didn't have to deal with until high school. The world of students today tends to be a little more real, a little more gritty, than that of their parents.
Students at Century High School and Bismarck High School probably do have an advantage of being better informed about drug and alcohol abuse than their parents when they were in high school, and some of that credit goes to the student journalist reporting today.
Drug and alcohol problems will not go away for students, but hopefully they better understand it as a problem. And parents and the community at large better understand their jobs.
