Klampe, Michelle. (June 9, 2019). Study shows LGBT youth at increased risked of substance use. The News Guard. Available at https://www.thenewsguard.com/news/study-shows-lgbt-youth-at-increased-risked-of-substance-use/article_f145d240-88b0-11e9-8b3f-1b81f3c9b03a.html (Accessed June 19, 2019).
This article discusses the increased usage of substances by LGBTQ identifying young women. Klampe says that the “odds of substance use among females who identify as sexual minorities… is 400 percent higher than their heterosexual female peers” (2019). This difference in substance use starts as young as 13 years old and can increase as these women enter their 20s. In general, research has shown that LGBTQ youth may appear to use substances almost three times more than their counterparts (Klampe, 2019). Although I am a bit out of the age group that they ran their initial study on, I am still within the range of interest. It is likely that if I am not aware of my actions, I can become susceptible to this issue, especially depending on the people that I am surrounded by and their relationship with substances. In my opinion, substance use is a pretty severe problem because it affects a person’s entire lifestyle – from physical health to mental health to work performance. It can be very detrimental to someone’s overall life. I think it is really important for young people to be aware of their relationship with alcohol, nicotine, and/or marijuana because it can escalate out of control as people begin to depend on these substances as coping mechanisms for the hardships in their lives. LGBTQ youth deal with higher rates of discrimination, depression, and violence, so it makes sense that they may abuse substances. However, these statistics say more about how much help the community needs because substances only further add to the issues people may face. In my experience, I have seen my LGBTQ friends use substances more, and at a younger age, than my heterosexual peers, because my LGBTQ friends dealt with more mental health issues and family instability. It is important to address substance abuse because it can impact the entire community, much like HIV/AIDs. Substance use is a disease that many people do not acknowledge, but it can drastically change people’s health outcomes. To interpret the numbers, I broke down 400% to about 4x more in order to conceptualize it with people.
It seems to me that Slovic is claiming that the unknown and uncontrollable factors frighten people more than familiar causes, such as automobile incidents. In this case, I think Slovic’s work would apply. Although the media discusses celebrities’ overdoses and fatal endings due to substances, there is not much discussion on how substances affect everyone else. People also are unaware of what is considered substance abuse, so they do not always know when their usage is becoming excessive or harmful. Substance use has become normalized in our society, so it is becoming harder for people to understand the gravity of its consequences.
I think it is important for health classes in the future to go more into detail on what qualifies as substance abuse. From my own health class back in high school, the most I’ve gotten was the type of drugs there are, and that they are bad for your health. They never went into much detail on why people become addicted to drugs besides peer/social pressure.
More attention needs to be brought to the LGBTQ community and drug abuse. Rarely do I come across articles or news segments on substance abuse in this community and rarely do I hear conversation about it. Drug abuse in general is something we’ve been taught about since we were kids. We aren’t taught about the social factors that drive people to abuse drugs and how some communities are more affected than others.