Those Risk-Taking Teens

When reading about how teenagers behave, one is amazed that most of them live to see age 20. That’s certainly true of the latest Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using data for 2001. Nineteen percent of 9th to 12th graders seriously considered suicide in the 12 months before being polled. In the 30 days before being queried, 31 percent rode in a car with a driver who’d been drinking, 47 percent consumed alcohol, 17 percent carried a weapon and 24 percent used marijuana.