Teens who use alcohol or drugs are more likely to have sex than those who do not: Adolescents who drink are seven times more likely, while those who use illicit substances are five times more likely.1
One-quarter of sexually active 9-12th grade students report using alcohol or drugs during their last sexual encounter with males more likely than females to have done so (31% vs. 19%).1
The more substances that sexually active teens and young adults have ever tried, the less likely they are to have used a condom the last time they had sex. Among those aged 14 to 22, 78 percent of boys and 67 percent of girls who reported never uing a substance said that they used a condom, compared with only 35 percent of boys and 23 percent of girls who reported ever having used five substances.1
55 percent of teenagers say that having sex while drinking or on drugs is often a reason for unplanned teen pregnancies.1
Teens who have used marijuana are four times more likely to have been pregnant or to have gotten someone pregnant than teens who have never smoked pot.2
In a study of unplanned pregnancies in 14-21 year olds, 1/3 of the girls who had gotten pregnant had been drinking when they had sex; 91 percent of them reported that the sex was unplanned.3
Alcohol use by the victim, perpetrator, or both, has been implicated in 46 percent of date rapes among college students.1
Research Excerpts
"Researchers found among the college students who drink, those who got drunk for the first time before 13 years old were twice as likely to have unplanned sex and were more than twice as likely to have unprotected sex because of drinking compared to those who didn't drink until after age 19. Researchers say these odds were true even after they adjusted for other factors including parental drinking history, race, marital status, marijuana use and age."4
Media Quotes
"Health officials who have begun to monitor student drinking at Mexican resorts say the tours have become a key element in the dark side of the spring break party scene: incidents involving alcohol poisoning, rape, unpleasant stays in Mexican jails, injuries from accidents or fights and theft."5
"The U.S. Consulate in Merida, Mexico, whose territory includes Cancun, says that during the eight-week spring break period in 2002, U.S. students accounted for two deaths, 360 arrests, four injuries that required medical evacuations out of the area, one rape, 495 reports of lost or stolen property and 504 'general welfare inquiries' - usually from parents back in the USA who were worried about a student's whereabouts."5
"Last year, a drunken student in Cancun fell off a balcony and died, says Consul Glen Keiser, the top State Department officer in Merida. 'That's what ties all of our cases together: Excessive drinking. Booze, sex and acting like idiots,' he says. 'The hardest thing I have to do ... is call a parent in the United States and tell them their son or daughter has died.'"5
