Resources for Schools Welcome to the Safe & Drug Free Schools RESOURCE LAB! The facts about substance use by our students are contained in the statistics below. More important than statistics, we as teachers, counselors, and staff actually see the personal impact of drug and alcohol use on our students' lives and success in both relationships and academics. Alcohol is the top drug of abuse by America’s teens. Children under the age of 21 drink 25% of the alcohol consumed in the United States. In Minnesota 62% of 12th and 37% of 9th graders report using alcohol in the past year. The brain is especially vulnerable to alcohol with problem-solving and decision-making and well as memory, learning and movement coordination damage. Marijuana use in the last year is reported at 35% for males and 27% for females in the 12th grade. While marijuana use decreased for 9th graders in 2007, it increased for older teens. Marijuana impairs short-term memory and learning, the ability to focus attention, and also affects perception, heart rate, lung function and mental health. With all the statistics and reports and stories about alcohol and drug abuse among teens, it is clear that using and abusing drugs will disrupt brain function in areas critical to motivation, memory, learning, judgment and behavior control. The RESOURCE LAB is here to support schools in the following ways:
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