To empower each citizen to make a personal commitment not to abuse drugs and to enable them to encourage others to make this commitment. To help our young people find positive ways of dealing with the stress of growing up through the encouragement of life-positive programs. Let's start with early teen smoking. In the last two years, teen smoking has actually gone down by a percentage and a half in Orange County, although these numbers are self reported and could be inaccurate. And teen girls start smoking at much higher rates than boys.
National studies find that more than half of high school seniors are using marijuana.
More than half of juniors and seniors report that they've been given or offered marijuana at school. Nearly five percent smoke it every day. The second most popular drug for teens is alcohol. It's easy to obtain and relatively inexpensive. White, Hispanic and Native American teens report much higher drinking than African-Americans and Asians.