(00:00:11) And good morning. Welcome to midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary eichten glad you could join us State education officials. Say Minnesota kids are drinking less but smoking more results of the 1998, Minnesota student survey are out and they show a general decline in alcohol consumption in recent years, but an increase in tobacco and marijuana use survey results also seemed indicate that efforts to reduce unprotected teenage sex activity or paying off but there remains a relatively high level of what's called antisocial Behavior. This our midday, we're going to take a closer look at some of those survey results Project Director Pat Harrison is with us. She's a researcher with the State Department of Human Services. And we also invite you to join our conversation. We're talking this hour about a new survey that measures the behavior of Minnesota. Six 9th and 12th graders. If you have a question or a comment, if you'd like to join our conversation, give us a call. Our Twin City area number is 6512276 thousand 6512276 thousand if you're calling from outside the Twin Cities, you can reach us toll-free and that number is 1-800-218-4243 or 1-800-222-8477. Minnesota public radio's Tim pug Meyer with a brief summary of some of the survey results researchers at the State Department of Children families and learning in the Department of Human Services have conducted the Minnesota student survey every three years since 1989 students in sixth ninth and 12th grades are asked anonymously about their involvement with Alcohol Tobacco drugs sex and other risky behaviors serve a co-director Barbie 8 says she's pleased the latest results show a gradual drop in drinking in all age groups. She says the survey found a troubling Trend in. Backhoe use particularly among older (00:02:02) students more and more 12th graders are smoking in Minnesota. This is reflecting a national Trend as well. The nationally the rates been increasing since 92 and in Minnesota. We've seen that increase also we are also increasing faster than the national rate. So when we look at the average usage among Minnesota seniors and compare that nationally Minnesota is exceeding the national average there. So we are very concerned (00:02:25) about that nearly 42% of Minnesota high school seniors question said they had smoked a cigarette in the past month. That's an 11% increase in six years survey co-director. Patricia Harrison says, there is no clear reason for the (00:02:39) increase. A lot of people speculate that the increased visibility of a lot of celebrities smoking is having an impact on kids. They're seeing a lot of their favorite movie stars chain-smoking in the movies on TV shows. There was really uncommon five to ten years ago. When a lot of the anti-smoking push began the other reason that people are thinking That we haven't given us much attention to Tobacco prevention as we have to Alcohol and Other Drugs and this may give kids the message that it's not as big a problem to be concerned (00:03:10) about one Suburban High School principal says, he's surprised by the drinking decline David Brom of Robbinsdale Cooper says, he hasn't seen a noticeable drop among his students. But he says the smoking trend is right on the mark Brom says too many students. Unfortunately view cigarettes as the key to sophistication and a way to Rebel, it's cool. It's it's a little bit of a tweak of the Adult World it off. Tell us we shouldn't do this. Well, we won't do the dangerous stuff. But tobacco is still an acceptable drug and I think for kids as well as adults that's what we see the student survey also found an overall decline in sexual activity more of the students who are active say they're practicing safe sex marijuana use increased but Minnesota is below The national average reported use of drugs other than alcohol or marijuana decreased slightly Barbie 8 says the Minnesota student survey is a measure of the effectiveness of the state's prevention efforts. She says programs aimed at youth drinking and sex have clearly helped in recent years, but smoking prevention needs work money from the state's tobacco settlement could be the help state agencies need Governor Ventura has budget proposal includes a 260 million dollar Endowment for smoking prevention and other local health issues. I'm Tim pug Meyer, Minnesota Public Radio. Once again, the co-director of the survey Pat Harrison with the Department of Human Services is with us to talk some more about these survey results and what they mean, and we invite you to join our conversation as well. Give us a call Twin City area number is 6512276 thousand 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities 1-800 to for 2282865122. Evan 6,000 or 1-800 to for to to 828 Pat Harrison. Thanks for coming in today. Thank you. Now you have been involved in all of these surveys since what 1989 (00:05:10) rides right the very beginning. (00:05:12) What is the what's the purpose of the survey itself? Is it to find out what kids are up to or to find out whether or not our prevention efforts are working. (00:05:22) Well, I think it's generally defined out how best parents adults Educators and the other people in their Community can help them things have changed a lot over the generations as to what are the biggest problems that face kids. We need to know about that and we need to hear about it first hand from themselves. So an anonymous survey gives kids a chance to acknowledge the kind of behaviors. They might not be comfortable talking about another settings and we can learn how widespread they are. And what types of things go together that helps a lot for planning efforts. For instance. One of the things we've learned consistently in the Is that one out of three kids in Minnesota comes from a family where there's either been physical violence sexual abuse or there's alcohol or drug abuse in the family that can be a lot to cope with when you're a teenager and we need to make sure we have resources available for those kids if they need some help. Hmm. How (00:06:18) confident are you that kids fill out these surveys accurately. I would I would think there might be a tendency on the part of kids to fool around with the surveys or maybe use it as an opportunity to brag a little bit or (00:06:31) well we hope the anonymity takes away some of the motivation to break because nobody will know they're doing it but you raise a really good point and we spend weeks looking at the data before we actually begin the analysis for the reports. And what we do is we look for some obvious patterns of exaggeration kids that are going to exaggerate tend to exaggerate throughout the entire survey and some of those patterns are extremely implausible and we remove those other kids will Tell us their sex or their age which suggests they're trying to conceal their identity and may not be given honest answers to so all in all we do just dozens of analyses to look for patterns that we think are probably not reliable and every year we remove a little less than 5% of the surveys before we start to analyze them. So we think the remaining surveys are really a pretty at Accurate reflection of what's Happening. We also have a couple other ways to check the validity. We notice that as the kids told us. The drug use was going up treatment admissions for adolescents were going up in an exactly parallel line that suggests that kids are given us a pretty accurate report. (00:07:39) What do you make of the cigarette smoking business now kids are in general and they're not kids anymore have been bombarded with anti-smoking messages for 30 years and no shortage of information about how evil tobacco is what's going on? (00:07:58) Well, you know, you have to look at the Fact that adults aren't paying a whole lot of attention either. We still have a least a quarter of adults in across the country and in Minnesota still smoking and they should be able to understand those Health messages to so it we're kind of complicated human beings. We have this tendency to understand intellectually that things could harm us but we never think it's going to happen to us. And for kids they think that harm is an awful long way away. So it's not that frightening even though we've had a lot of anti-tobacco messages. I think the positive messages from the industry really outweigh the little that we've been able to do I noticed even watching the Super Bowl the talk afterwards about the best commercials were almost always about the beer commercials, you know, the beer in the tobacco industry have really understood how to reach their public and influence and I think they've done that successfully. I don't think we've countered it as well as we (00:08:54) could but the alcohol abuse is what leveled off is that At the best way to describe what's happened in terms of kids use of (00:09:03) alcohol. It's not a simple picture. What we've seen is that any use among seniors has pretty much leveled off fortunately where we're seeing. The declined is among the younger students the kids in Sixth and Ninth Grade that's really encouraging that they're they're hearing some of these messages. I in response to the comment from the high school principal who didn't see the decline. I think that that could well be that what we haven't seen a decline in is in the more dangerous patterns of use high school seniors will still tell us that typically when they drink one third of them drink at least five drinks each time and one third of them also admit to driving a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs. So we haven't had a big enough impact in the most dangerous behaviors were kids actually are into the kinds of things that can be (00:09:52) life-threatening one other question here general question before we get started with some callers in terms of sexual activity. Very apparently there has been an improvement in terms of kids who are sexually active protecting themselves. What about the actual level of sexual activity what's going on with (00:10:11) that? That's actually a remarkable Improvement for human behavior over a 10-year period the number of boys 12th grade boys that have engaged in sexual activity drop from almost two-thirds in 1989 to half that's been a big change its declined for girls as well. I think that this is one area where the education efforts have been extremely successful and one of the things we've looked at with the data is if kids say that their primary source of information our parents and Schools, they're much less likely to engage in sexual activity. I think this is important because for a long time people thought sex education in the school was promoting sexual activity, but the data showed just the opposite that if kids are getting sex education The school I think it means they're getting accurate information about all the risks involved in many fewer of them are choosing to have (00:11:07) sex but presumably they'd also have to get that message reinforced at (00:11:10) home to really helps if they get a consistent message at (00:11:13) home Pat Harrison is with us. She's with the Department of Human Services co-director of this Minnesota student survey that's out measuring the behavior of 6/9 and 12th graders in the state of Minnesota. And if you'd like to join our conversation learn a little bit more about what the survey found out give us a call six five one two, two seven six thousand outside the Twin Cities. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 was listening to your show and I called in right away because your guest was talking about reasons for throwing out some of these surveys as you were talking about trying to get accurate stuff and the second reason Or people not putting them there their sex or their their age was exactly what I did here in Minnesota and my high school years and I just want to say that I and a lot of my friends did did the same thing and in doing that I answered absolutely everything correct or truthful and I think you're throwing away good data. (00:12:24) Well, you know, you may be right? Yeah, that's from your viewpoint. But only about two percent of kids don't fill out their age of their sex. And if as you say they fill out the survey accurately their answers would likely be very much the same as the hundred and thirty four thousand that we do use so I don't think it affects the total results a lot. It is just really difficult with Anonymous surveys to try to get the most accurate picture we can (00:12:50) do you break it down then for school officials could a could have principal come to you and say well, I know you can't tell me specifically what what my kids are up to. But can you give me an idea of as a school population what they're (00:13:03) doing the Department of Children family and learning does give each School District not each School an aggregate summary of their results if their sample is large enough that anonymity could not be compromised so they could not look at the individual data to try to find out about individuals, but they will get a summary table that shows how many percent of kids in their District gave such and such an answer so they can compare it to the Statewide (00:13:29) results. Did I get pretty stirred up with the what the results are they pretty interested in this material or of necessity are they so focused on academics that they kind of look at it and then move along (00:13:41) I think a lot of school districts have done an excellent job with the material. In fact, there's a conference in March where many of them attend and some of them talk about the way they've been able to put it to good use many of them bring parents in and do a lot of really focused planning both with parents and kids to address the problems. They see in their Community. So we've been extraordinarily pleased by how effectively they put it to use. (00:14:05) Next caller is from Sioux Falls Mark. Go ahead, please. Yeah. I just have a couple questions. First of all in your introductory piece there you talked about the increase in drug use, but I'm wondering what those numbers actually are. And secondly, I actually have a son in the second grade and he comes home from school talking about you know, what they mention in school about drugs and alcohol. I'm just wondering if you think it's actually dangerous to put those things in the same context because for a second grader to understand that you have to be 21 years old to drink and that's the legal limit. I don't I'm not sure they distinguish the difference and obviously I think you know any kind of drug marijuana would have used very dangerous thing and when we they see, you know, Dad having a Or maybe mom having a glass of wine and we put them in the same sentence. I just think that diminishes their thought of the dangers of actual of the other drugs. I'll take my answer off the air. Okay, first of all in terms of drug use in general what's going on with it? (00:15:17) Okay, you asked about the change in marijuana use for instance. If we look back to 92 among High School seniors, we only had 20% reporting marijuana use in the past 12 months. That's now up to 30% So that's a pretty big increase. We've also seen increases in the younger grades as well. But in sixth grade that's only amounts to about 4% Remember those kids are 11 and 12 years old other drug use tends to range only from about 3 to 9 percent whether you're talking inhalants LSD or whatever. So those are a lot less common. I think you raise an excellent question about the time to talk to kids about alcohol and drugs. And what messages are most appropriate. Each age group. Unfortunately, I don't think we've done enough research on how kids interpret messages in the age group you're talking about and I think that's very very important that things can get confused at that age. I think for parents they need to understand that we're most young kids get drugs access to things. It's in the home. It's stealing from friend's home or it's getting it from other friends and what they start with is things like inhalants smelling paint or glue or things like that. They may try alcohol if they can find it and that's typically where they start to back out first. So I think it is really important for parents to get as much information as they can and then figure out what they want to talk to their kids about and I think you're very fortunate that you talk to your youngster about what they hear at school. So you can help interpret those messages within the context of your own home environment and I really think that's the thing that needs to be done (00:16:57) best. You can tell When when people at school talk about drugs though, they always lump alcohol in with the with the other drugs. (00:17:07) They do do that because from a policy perspective. They're all considered illicit drugs for underage kids and there's been a tendency to think that if they focus only on the drugs that are also illegal for adults kids get the implicit message that alcohol is not as dangerous and the most important thing that we know is more kids die from alcohol abuse than all other drugs combined and it's related to more violence and suicide and car accidents and it really is a huge problem and if we don't talk about it in that context for young people, they tend to dismiss its dangers. (00:17:45) Do we have any long-term information about alcohol use I'm thinking of the traditional keg parties that many parents grew up familiar with and of You hear stories, even about Grandpa and Grandma they're going out and having a few beers and so on so forth. Is that really changed much over time? Do we know (00:18:06) that I don't think that that has changed much over time. We certainly see a lot more heavy drinking outside of the Twin Cities. There's a tendency sometimes for people to believe that every problem is worse in the City of Minneapolis. And st. Paul than the rest of the state the survey actually finds that's not the case heavy smoking and higher quantity drinking is much more common among kids outside the Twin City metro area than it is its lowest in the cities of Minneapolis st. Paul. So a lot of that is the culture and I think the fact that parents did it and grandparents did it and are still alive to tell about it leads us to the idea that well this is just something all kids have to go through and we survived and they'll survive and the truth is that most of us do survive even even the risk taking but sometimes people don't and those are the tragedies that we need to avoid. (00:18:57) Mmm Mel your question, please. Yes, I was interested in how our increasing rate of Youth smoking compares to other states. Are there any Trends with dare or Florida's smoking quarter anything that we can learn from other states that are getting a better result (00:19:16) that is definitely going to be one of the initiatives of the Minnesota. Tobacco partnership. I think that a lot of what will come out of this tobacco settlement are ways to look at what has succeeded elsewhere California in particular has been successful at lowering their rate across the state and it's a combination of good cessation efforts making things available for people who want to quit both young people and adults and then preventing any start of smoking because that's obviously the most successful way to do it. We have not it has been cigarette smoking has been increasing among youth for a few years and that isn't Lee well understood but we're hoping that gets turned around with some of the restrictions that are now in place from the tobacco settlements like removing the Billboards and some of the sponsorship the high visibility sponsorship of sports activities and the giveaways that kids like (00:20:17) Angela your question, please hi. I see quite a large number of young children. I'd say 10 to 14 smoking on a daily basis between the hours of 5:00 and 6:00. Like when I'm waiting for my bus to go home and last night when I saw a couple of 12 year old smoking. I was tempted just to take those cigarettes out of their mouths and smash them on the ground and I think part of it is, you know, if the school's can't be with them 24 hours a day and their parents can't then when 20 adults stand around and watch two young girls walk by smoking illegally. Never mind. We know what they're doing their bodies and we no one says anything. I think we're only you know, they've already learned that they can get away with it the cops don't bust them. No adults say anything to them. So the only you know, they're not getting their hearing negative messages, but there's never any repercussions to actually doing it as far as they can. (00:21:07) See I think you're absolutely right. I think we have a more tolerant culture now than then at least I grew up with. I mean if we would have been caught smoking it 11 or 12 any one of the neighbors would have said something about it immediately and our parents would have heard about it. And now there is more of a tendency to for everyone to go about their own business and not do anything and a kids are probably left alone more without the community supervision or their parents available that we had grown up. We haven't adapted well to the kinds of changes that that might be needed when we give kids that much freedom and lack of supervision, but I think what you mention is the community tolerance for this behavior is a big factor. I think we have to change those Norms. I think if kids understood That adults in their Community don't accept this that it that it's taboo that nobody wants to see it happen. We could have a greater effect, especially on the most the youngest kids because they are responsive to adult approval. (00:22:07) What's what's currently do. We know what's going on in schools these days in terms of peer pressure do kids report other kids for doing things are not supposed to smoking drinking like or (00:22:21) I don't know how much that goes on in the school. Yeah (00:22:25) yelling in the other kids (00:22:27) that that would be my guess that it really isn't their job to tell another kids and you know, if it's not done on school grounds, it is really not the school's responsibility. It's a parental responsibility to have kids smoking, you know at the shopping malls or things like that. So schools can give the messages but unless parents and other adults help to reinforce that same message. It's hard to get kids to go along (00:22:52) Pat Harrison is with us she is Is a researcher at the Department of Human Services co-director of this Minnesota student survey that sound that measures risky Behavior among Minnesota schools students. And if you'd like to join our conversation, give us a call. Our Twin City area number is 6512276 thousand 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight and we'll get to some more callers in a couple minutes. (00:23:18) I'm Lorna Benson on the next all things considered we'll look at the latest Trend in preparing kids for first grade in elementary school in Brainerd is trying an all-day kindergarten program to help at-risk kids get a leg up on reading and math a growing number of Minnesota schools are trying this approach will find out what effect it's having on kindergartners that story on the next All Things Considered weekdays at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio K. No W FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities. (00:23:47) That's at three o'clock this afternoon over the noon hour today the second hour of our midday program. We're going to be rebroadcasting some excerpts from last night's Forum at the Fitzgerald theater in downtown st. Paul Governor Jesse Ventura Senate Majority Leader Roger mole and house Speaker Steve swag. Mm were on the stage of the Fitzgerald last night to talk about the state budget their budget priorities and how they see some of these big issues playing out tax cuts tax rebates education funding in the rest pretty Lively discussion, and we'll have full hours worth of excerpts from last night's Forum over the noon hour today actually if you're setting your watch or going to get a little early start about two minutes to noon. So don't miss the beginning of the program programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by Ecolab Global partner with leading Hospitality Healthcare and food processing customers improving cleaning and sanitation standards worldwide w-w-w dot equal AB Dot News headlines now, here's Greta Cottingham Greta. (00:24:50) Good morning. Gary presidential friend Vernon. Jordan is inside the US Capitol today Fielding questions from impeachment trial prosecutors house prosecutors will ask Jordan about what Monica Lewinsky told him about her relationship with President Clinton. Also today senators are getting a closed-door. Look at what Lewinsky said yesterday in her deposition with White House prosecutors. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian say, they will show up this weekend for peace talks. Now, the ball is in the serbs court. They'll make a decision Thursday on whether to attend Pentagon officials report American planes have dropped more bombs on Iraq officials. Say Iraqi radar targeted Air Force jets this morning in Northern no-fly zones in two separate incidents the skirmishes with Iraq have become almost a daily occurrence in recent weeks in Regional news a spokesman for Jordan's King Hussein. It says the Monarch completed a bone marrow transplant today at the Mayo Clinic Hussein return to the Mayo after cancer relapse. The spokesman says the king is holding up very well and will be closed. Monitored for the next two weeks a Minnesota house panel today agreed to eliminate motor vehicle emissions testing on July 1st 2000 the house Transportation policy committee sent the bill to the environment and natural resources committee. Those who support the bill say the testing is inefficient and ineffective those against ending the testing say they worry about increased pollution more kindergartners could spend all day in school under a plan given preliminary approval today by a Minnesota Senate committee The Proposal phases in funding for all-day kindergarten. So all schools could have such programs by 2005 a proposed Minnesota Orchestra Amphitheater is another step closer to reality the Brooklyn Park City Council voted last night to approve an environmental assessment on the site. The city's Planning Commission will review details of the project next week. Mostly sunny skies reported around the region at this hour Rochester report sunshine in 25 saint-cloud, mostly sunny and 29. It's sunny and Duluth and 25 and in the Twin Cities Sunshine a temperature of 20 degrees and Gary that Look at the latest news. (00:26:47) Thank you Greta. It is now 27 minutes before twelve o'clock talking this hour about a new survey of Minnesota school students measuring their behavior patterns the risky Behavior patterns Pat Harrison is with us. She's with the Department of Human Services, and she was one of the co-directors of the survey and lots of callers on the line. If you'd like to join them, six five, one two, two seven six thousand or one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight and Pat before we get back to our callers a antisocial Behavior. You also measure that and then there were and that's remained what relatively stable (00:27:26) over time some declines over 10 years. But in the past three years, it has been relatively stable (00:27:32) and that includes fighting and stuff like that. (00:27:35) Yeah, we look at physical fights vandalism carrying weapons. We look at whether kids feel victimized at school sort of bullying behavior and whether that makes them feel unsafe. (00:27:48) There was a finding that bathrooms school bathrooms seem to be a an area where kids are particularly traumatized. What's that all (00:27:57) about? Well, I suspect it's one place where there is not Hall monitors or teachers hanging around. So if they're going to pick on a kid that might be the place where they feel like they can get away with it. I think especially in middle school years and even the the younger the sixth graders there tends to be a lot of teasing of kids that are different that look different maybe way a little bit more or less or have some feature the kids liked to pick on and I think that's an area where schools and others can do a lot more about teaching respectful Behavior. (00:28:31) Hmm damn near question, please. Yeah. I have a visual situation I want to talk about and then I have a cause that I believe is part of the reason why it's allowed to happen in about 20 minutes. You can go in front. Any of them the major schools in the city of Duluth and you'll see between 75 and 100 kids standing in the middle of street smoking probably within the visual scene of of the the main office buildings of these schools and there's actually one school that allows the kids to smoke on their property one of the schools for the more challenged kids and then you'll have drug treatment programs in the city of Duluth that allow the kids juvenile kids to go out and smoke during their breaks. And you know, I feel that you said that this the the schools are not they are not as long as they're out the property but if the school's see this happening, I think that they should be required because it is the law that's been broken. They should be required to call the police and the police should be required to give smoking tickets to these kids and I am convinced being a smoking anti-smoking activist for a long time. I'm convinced that nicotine addicted people that work in the system are are putting up blocks for any type of consequences happening on a regular basis to kids. I believe that we have a lot of adults that are addicted to nicotine and they're stopping themes for happiness far as consequences and and it really bothers me that that's happening and I feel that these people I believe that they cannot see what's real people that are addicted to nicotine have a reality problem and I truly believe that it may be very subtle in certain situations, but you get a person that smoked a lot of cigarettes you take the cigarettes away for six hours and then you have them go in and do a critical job and you'll see that the performance is effective and I think I'm very angry about the situation with the school's allowing the kids to smoke even though it's a state law, especially when they let him smoke in the property well, How do schools and do we have any information as to what happens in terms of school officials and kids smoking? I mean they are they cracking down pretty hard on kids smoking or do they tend to look the other way? I guess whether their brain addled or not because of (00:31:05) nicotine. I don't know I suspect there might be a lot of variation from school to school. So it would be real hard to generalize. I you know, I agree with the caller that if he feels that strongly that he ought to pass that along I would certainly let the school know and the community officials know of his concerns. I think that's something that other tobacco activists will be taking a look at and I think he raises an excellent point. I mean if we do still have one out of four adults that are smoking and presumably most of those are addicted to cigarettes. It can be difficult for people like that in a leadership position to be very successful at enforcing anti-smoking. Can policies for youth so if you have teachers or school principals or High School coaches or parents that are smoking they may not be the most effective ones to pack along past the line the messages. So I think the caller raise some excellent points and I think that what we need to do over the coming years is look at ways to deal with the kinds of things he talked about (00:32:08) when your question please I am a high school coach. He just mentioned and up in st. Francis and I'm just concerned with I see a lot of young kids smoking and I was there something I could do. And now that I am involved in my community. I do look at faces to see if I know them and recognize them because when I would, you know, take steps obviously we have suspension programs in the like up at the high school. But what else can I do? When his kids? I don't know. I mean, it really bothers me when I'm outside of store and my young kids are 6 and 4 and they see this and I just don't like the influence. I mean can do we have any rights? Can we call the police? Give me what would what would what would be our course of (00:32:44) action? I don't know that calling the police would probably do too much. I don't think there's anything wrong with finding a respectful way to talk to the kids. If you're concerned about them. I you know, I've known have some people that are ex mockers themselves that will comment to kids that you think it's okay now, but pretty soon you're going to regret it. But a lot of people are very uncomfortable confronting strangers like that. And of course the kids may not be very respectful to you if you try so I you know, what I would like to see is that we be much more successful reaching them before they get to that point because I think at the point that you're talking about the options are limited we need to stop them from taking up the Habit to begin with (00:33:28) hmm. You get much sense from these surveys as two kids. I suppose inherently rebellious nature that is to say the more we tell them they're not supposed to do this that and the other thing the more likely frankly they're at least going (00:33:46) Try it. I think that's always true kids that were certainly true of us growing up and I don't think kids today have changed a whole lot but I'm not sure that it's all Rebellion when we look at what we find in the survey. We find a lot of girls in particular smoke is a weight control mechanism. That's something we can reach by education. It is not the best way to control weight. We also find that smoking is much higher among kids that say, they're under a great deal of stress like adults. They use nicotine to cope with that stress. So I think maybe we could do a lot more with teaching kids about stress reduction and coping mechanisms. When they're young we tend to minimize the amount of emotional distress teenagers feel and we think they're just going to outgrow it but to them at the time it's happening. It's a lot to cope with so we find that the kids that say, they're anxious nervous have a lot of depression or are dealing with more stress than they can cope with have a much much much higher rate of smoking than other kids. (00:34:43) Matt Harrison is with us. She is with a Of Human Services. She was the co-director of a new survey. That's out the Mets not annual. What do you do? Every three years you survey Minnesota school students on their behavior, and she's come by today to talk about the this year's survey results touching on tobacco use alcohol use drug use sexual activity antisocial Behavior. If you'd like to join our conversation, give us a call six five one two, two seven six thousand 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities 1-800 to for 22828 Diane. You're next. Hi. Thank you for taking my call my initial comment design probably one of the parents that you would absolutely hate. My daughter is now set to be 20 this summer. She graduated from high school without being pregnant. She graduated without being in a gang. She graduated very highly in her class and she was given permission by me to smoke. I guess I felt that I would choose my battles. I think teenagers have enough things as the other person was saying where it's a it's a bit of rebellion, but I don't know II think you choose your battles hair is only hair. It doesn't really matter. What color or what length it is. It's not that big a thing as far as the smoking. That's something that I think they're going to do as a rebellious nature and I just I don't know I guess I choose my battles differently than some other people. I also would like to say that when when the woman was saying about the children being out there and what course of action would you say, would you take I would say absolutely say something. I don't I approached kids on the street all the time and ask them. Hey, how are you doing? Are you guys behaving you're not getting into any trouble? I think if they know that adults are watching and even if they don't know you that takes away a little bit of their idea that they can intimidate people. Okay. Thanks Diane. You're (00:36:42) welcome. Yeah, thanks for your comments. No, of course. I don't hate you and obviously you did a terrific job reason your daughter and you have a lot to be proud of we look at this as a public health problem. It's not a moral issue and you're right parents can only do so much and kids are going to make their choices and we keep our fingers crossed. But if you look at it from the big picture as people get older one out of three deaths can be attributed to tobacco-related causes. I mean it contributes to an enormous amount of disease and we also know that the younger kids start smoking the much more likely they are to get addicted and to retain that habit over the course of their adulthood now, they don't believe that of course when when you interview them they think they'll quit in a couple years. So this is just something they're going to do for now. They know it's dangerous and they'll quit but by the time they get to the point where they can make up their mind about that they find out that they're addicted and it's not as easy. As they believed it was going to be that's our concern about smoking certainly if you pick your battles, you may decide that it is much less dangerous than many of the other concerns parents have and and I can respect that but from a public health perspective when we know how much money illness and death eventually results from smoking we need to be concerned about how young it starts Mike your comment, please. (00:38:06) Yeah. Thanks for taking my call a couple of comments and then I and I'll just kind of hang up and listen. First of all, I've got I've got three sons ironically. It's the youngest one that smokes the other two don't and what I'm kind of seeing just having greatest Three Sons. The other one is on the verge of being able to legally Legally buy cigarettes is that there's precious little for kids ages 14 through 18, not so much for them to do but there's precious little recognition of them as adult or as capable of joining our society and as a couple of the caller's earlier talked about, you know calling the Least when they see them smoking and just generally getting down on kids and I just think I think in general our society leaves precious few outlets for kids to be adults. We restrict their drivers licenses. We impose tougher and tougher curfews were constantly scrutinizing their behavior. And this is just one way that kids can kind of be in our face and say well, you know, he won't treat me like an adult but I'm going to act like one whether you like it or not and they just I think our society needs to change its whole attitude towards kids that age and treat them with more respect and treat them as more as full-fledged members of our society rather than little criminals and I'll just take my answer off their thanks. Thanks Mike, (00:39:23) you know, you make just an absolutely excellent point. I think that's terrific when we look at societies ever since the beginning of time virtually every society had a way to recognize the transition of young boys and girls into adulthood that was celebrated they had To be proud of they often did something an achievement of some kind that learned that recognition and there was a huge Community celebration around that other than you know, some religious celebrations. We do very little of that and you are right. We focus a lot on the ways they get in trouble and we do not give nearly enough attention to some of the wonderful things kids are doing I know that the news media in recent years has given a lot more attention to the kinds of things that kids are doing on their own the way they create different projects and help each other and a lot more of that needs to be reinforced and maybe we need to look for ways to recognize those transition points in a child's life so that they don't feel they have to start smoking or start drinking to earn that recognition from their peers and your comment, please (00:40:33) yes. I'm a retired School administrator and I'd like to comment about two things one the person who call from Duluth to say that C-could smoking and at the school should call the police in my opinion if he seized it smoking and he wants the police involved. He should be the one to call the schools have enough problems and enough Challengers without having to look down the street to see who's smoking. The second comment. I would have would be that there are some schools that do allow kids to smoke outside. And the reason for that it didn't happen in the school, which I were but the reason for that is that there is a great tendency for kids who have the habit of smoking to smoke anywhere. They can including the washrooms in the schoolhouse now in the school, which I worked there are nine boys washrooms and nine girls washrooms and to have the Personnel to supervise 18 washrooms to make sure kid doesn't smoke. There is rather difficult for that reason some schools didn't allow kids to smoke outside knowing that they're going to smoke somewhere and hoping that they wouldn't get caught and before you run. Since you raised the issue of the bathrooms what's going on there where kids are so afraid to go to the bathrooms are going to get beat up jet square with your that can happen. You know, where there where there's animosity between kids. They don't want to do it in front of a teacher. So they'll go to someplace where they think the teacher won't be and the bathroom was the place where to go. Thanks, Ed. You got let's move on to another caller Bill joins us from Edina bill. Yeah. Hi. My question is I notice in the survey that came out yesterday, Minnesota 12th graders are now smoking at a rate 6.6 percent higher than the national average. It seemed like there was a time in Minnesota. When we kind of led the way on Tobacco issues in general issues of Public Health. I know in some areas we still do but you know, whatever happened to that number one in Minnesota and things that are good and kind of number 50 and things that are bad. And I was just kind of wondering what the commissioner thought with regard to the tobacco settlement lump sum dollars in the next few years. If we should direct some of that towards prevention education. It just seems it in Minnesota. We could do a better job than we're doing right now. Well parent you just got a got a promotion to commissioner (00:43:00) now revert back to where I was (00:43:06) we should note that we're not number 50. I don't think but what about that business that we were perceived any way to be kind of a national leader in terms of the anti-smoking effort at the time when that was true. I guess that would be mid 70s late 70s early 80s did (00:43:27) Teenage smoking (00:43:28) actually drop a lot at that time or was a I mean where we a leader in that area or was it just that we were Banning smoking in restaurants and things like that. (00:43:39) Yeah. I'm not sure we didn't have as much. Data back in the 70s as we do now, so I don't really know what the trends were. I do think it's clear and a lot of people that are very involved with tobacco efforts in the state sort of bemoan the complacency that set in after we kind of took that leadership role and we had that early success. I think we cut back on what we were doing and one thing that we've learned to particularly with kids is that every generation or even every three years of kids continues to need the same messages over and over again, and if we don't keep that up steadily we lose ground we lose ground with you know, alcohol drugs and everything else. So I think there was a fair amount of complacency that said in and I think some people didn't think there was a lot more to do but other states have continued to move forward and I think of passed us up, I think we would like to regain that number one status and I think an awful lot of people are talking about the tobacco settlement money. And how best we can use that proportion that set aside for tobacco efforts. Most effectively. (00:44:47) Did you get any sense in terms of the survey do kids take these issues seriously, and I understand it's hard to generalize about a large number of people but in general do they tend to take these things seriously and sometimes do the wrong thing. Sometimes do the right thing or do they often times? Dismiss it as not being all that risky after all. (00:45:15) I'm really impressed at today's young people when we've talked to some of them as we've done focus groups around designing the survey and when we talked to some of them in the conference's we have afterwards when we share the information I think kids are incredibly serious in some ways. I think they're more concerned about their environment in each other than we were growing up. They're tremendously responsible and sometimes it's easy to lose sight of that. And even I as I talk about the worst part of the picture on a program like this tend to ignore the fact that the great majority of kids are not engaging in some of these behaviors and are feeling really responsible. They're doing a good job in school. They're getting ready for their careers. They love their families, they respect their parents and that's probably a message that we don't get out there often enough as well. There's always risks growing up and we try to do the best we can to minimize those but there's an awful lot of good kids. There that I think we ought to be really proud of (00:46:14) Chris your comment, please. Yes. Thank you. And well, I'm a former smoker I started when I was 14 and quit when I was 29 about nine years ago. I'm now a distance Runner and I regret that in high school. I wasn't running and was rather smoking. I know that there are there were musicians in and around the punk music movement in the late 70s and early 80's who totally has chewed drug use and where anti-smoking they were vegetarian and they had quite a following and you know, I know that there are venues here in the Twin Cities like First Avenue the terminal bar places like that the whole that present all ages shows and I'd really like to see on those shows capitalized on as a resource for for sort of disseminating a non-smoking culture and Ethos among younger people. What one of your collars was saying earlier was that they're not It as adults will these all ages shows give them a chance to act like adults and I think if they brought in musicians who can enforce that message and and make it cool not to smoke that would really go a long way and I guess my question is to Miss Harrison does your does the Department of Human Services do program evaluation on particular types of intervention of this sort to evaluate their effectiveness. I work for a program evaluation unit in a Medical Research Foundation and would be very interested in following this (00:47:43) up. First I need to thank you for your comments. I think your suggestions are just excellent at the Human Services. We do evaluation of alcohol and drug treatment programs. But we do not do the tobacco. Most of the tobacco activities are actually located at the Minnesota Department of Health. And I think we're going to see an increase in efforts for the kinds of things that you're talking about in the coming years (00:48:09) presumably with the tobacco money, they'd be able to better measure which programs actually are doing some good as rights to what we think might be a (00:48:18) that's exactly what we need to find out and we and we may find out different things work for different age groups and different types of people Cathy you're coming. (00:48:26) I just thank you very much for the program. It's wonderful, and I guess your spokesperson said kids have not changed and I really believe they haven't but I think parents have their priorities and not always in order and I think rather than schools and Society being responsible for the kids. I think parents have to take charge teach them give them respect teach them what it is and then they'll give it back and that's pretty much it. I just I love kids and I love teenagers the best. So thank you very much from your survey. Did you get any sense of what our parents drawing a pretty hard line on these things or are they all over the map some taking a pretty tough line? Some are pretty permissive. Any sense of (00:49:16) that generally what we found in the past is the kids and remember we're only getting the kids perspective on how the parents are. We don't have the parents perspective which could be a little bit different. Generally. What we find is the kids that think their parents are way too strict or way too lenient are the ones most likely to get into trouble but that middle ground where they say their parents have rules and pretty much enforce the rules those kids tend to do better. So in that sense, I agree with the collar I think parents have a lot of responsibility and I think they also tend to underestimate how much they can actually influence their kids during these critical years. (00:49:54) We don't have much time left here, but I wanted to review again some of the highlights of the survey results before we wrap up tobacco use is up among older students. Anyway alcohol use (00:50:07) its kind of leveled off down a little bit among the youngest students. Mmm (00:50:11) drug use other than marijuana. (00:50:16) Generally on the decline very small differences. (00:50:19) Hmm and marijuana use is up. (00:50:21) Marijuana use is still going up (00:50:24) sexual activity is off (00:50:26) substantially that's down a lot. Hmm (00:50:29) and this antisocial Behavior again, the the truancy and the fights and and the rest of it what's happening with (00:50:37) that. It's pretty much down over the past 10 years. We didn't see a lot of different stuff from three years ago. Okay, (00:50:46) and you're going to do another survey in three years, (00:50:49) right? Yep. We are. Thanks very much bad preciate you're coming in today. Thank you very much (00:50:54) Pat Harrison, who is a researcher with the Department of Human Services co-director of this year's Minnesota student survey, which measured Behavior among Minnesota school students like to remind you that programming and NPR is supported by majority Italian dining in Woodbury featuring The featuring fine Italian lunch. And dinner in a relaxed atmosphere directions and reservations 6517307233. We're going to break for station identification and then some excerpts from last night's Fitzgerald Forum on the (00:51:27) budget, February 12th through the 14th is the Twin Cities food and wine experience at the Minneapolis Convention Center call early for discount on tickets and NPR members get an additional discount for tickets call 6123715857. (00:51:45) You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. We have a sunny sky and it's 28 degrees at Kenner wfm 91.1 Minneapolis. And st. Paul partly cloudy through the afternoon high around 33 degrees partly cloudy this evening, maybe some light snow late tonight, and then tomorrow sleet freezing rain with snow by tomorrow afternoon.