Children with lower intelligence may face a significantly higher risk of developing alcohol problems as adults, according to alarming new research from Swedish scientists. The study, which tracked almost 600,000 18-year-old boys, found that those who performed worse on cognitive tests were considerably more likely to develop a problematic relationship with alcohol in later life.

This groundbreaking research comes at a time when experts have increasingly warned about a ‘quick fix environment’, where young people are growing up addicted to screens with diminishing attention spans, potentially affecting how their cognitive abilities develop during crucial formative years.

The extensive study provides crucial insights into how intelligence levels measured in adolescence may influence vulnerability to alcohol use disorder (AUD) decades later, raising important questions about early intervention and support for young people with cognitive difficulties.

Major Study Reveals Teenage IQ and Alcohol Connection

A comprehensive Swedish study tracked 573,855 males from age 18 years over an average follow-up period of 60.5 years, examining the association between IQ scores at conscription and subsequent alcohol use disorder diagnoses. The results were striking and consistent across multiple analytical approaches.

Young men with low IQ scores (defined as one standard deviation or more below the population mean) showed a 43% higher lifetime risk of developing alcohol use disorder compared to those with medium IQ levels, even after adjusting for factors such as parental substance use disorder, psychiatric conditions, socioeconomic status, and birth year. Conversely, those with high IQ scores demonstrated a 40% reduced risk of alcohol use disorder.

Of the 573,855 participants followed, 37,333 (6.5%) developed alcohol use disorder during the study period. However, when broken down by IQ group, the rates were markedly different:

• Low IQ group: 10.0% developed alcohol use disorder
• Medium IQ group: 6.4% developed alcohol use disorder
• High IQ group: 4.0% developed alcohol use disorder

Understanding Teenage IQ and Alcohol Risk Patterns

The relationship between low IQ and alcohol use disorder isn’t uniform across the intelligence spectrum. The protective or risk effect was most pronounced at the lower end of the IQ distribution, with lower teenage IQ and alcohol problems showing substantially more risk than higher IQ provided protection. Research showed a nonlinear effect, with approximately 30% predicted impact on alcohol use disorder risk for the lowest IQ levels compared to only 6.5% for higher IQ levels.

This suggests a threshold effect where cognitive vulnerabilities may have disproportionate impacts on substance use outcomes. The association remained robust even in within-sibling comparisons, where brothers with low IQ had nearly 40% increased risk for alcohol use disorder compared to their siblings with medium IQ.

The Genetic Connection Between Cognitive Performance and Alcohol Problems

The research employed sophisticated genetic analyses through Mendelian randomisation to understand whether the link between low IQ and alcohol use disorder represents a causal relationship. The results suggested that lower genetic liability for cognitive performance was causally associated with increased alcohol use disorder risk, indicating that the connection isn’t merely coincidental or due to other confounding factors.

In an independent US cohort of 5,424 participants, individuals with the highest cognitive performance polygenic scores had 35% decreased odds of alcohol use disorder compared to those in the lowest group. This validates the findings across different populations and methodologies.

Educational Attainment and the Low IQ Alcohol Use Disorder Link

The study revealed fascinating differences in how this relationship manifests across different societies. In the Swedish cohort, approximately 14% of the effect of IQ on alcohol use disorder risk was mediated through educational attainment. This suggests that part of the reason low IQ increases alcohol use disorder risk is through its impact on educational achievement.

However, the role of education varied considerably depending on national context. In societies with more equitable access to education and healthcare (such as Sweden and Finland), educational attainment may buffer—though not eliminate—the risk for alcohol use disorder associated with lower cognitive performance. In more stratified social systems, by contrast, educational attainment may amplify the vulnerability by exacerbating disparities in access to health services and opportunities.

Why Low IQ May Increase Alcohol Use Disorder Vulnerability

Several mechanisms may explain the connection between low IQ and alcohol use disorder risk:

Reduced Problem-Solving Capacity: Lower cognitive ability may limit adaptive coping strategies during adversity, making substances more appealing as a coping mechanism.

Impaired Decision-Making: Difficulties in evaluating long-term consequences versus short-term rewards may increase susceptibility to substance use initiation and continuation.

Educational and Occupational Challenges: Lower IQ often translates to fewer educational and career opportunities, potentially increasing stress and reducing access to supportive environments.

Co-occurring Conditions: The research found that individuals with low IQ had higher rates of ADHD (1.1% versus 0.3% in high IQ group) and internalising conditions such as depression and anxiety (13.0% versus 6.9% in high IQ group), which are themselves risk factors for alcohol use disorder.

Socioeconomic Disadvantage: Those with low IQ were more likely to experience household crowding during childhood (25.4% versus 10.2% in high IQ group), an indicator of lower socioeconomic status that independently contributes to substance use risk.

Implications for Prevention and Early Intervention

Understanding the connection between low IQ and alcohol use disorder risk has important implications for prevention strategies. Young people demonstrating cognitive difficulties may benefit from:

• Enhanced Educational Support: Targeted academic interventions that help build coping skills and problem-solving abilities alongside traditional learning.
• Early Monitoring: Healthcare providers and educators should be aware that cognitive struggles in adolescence may signal increased vulnerability to substance use problems.
• Family-Based Approaches: Given that parental substance use disorder affected 11.6% of the low IQ group compared to 7.2% of the high IQ group, family-centred prevention programmes addressing multiple risk factors may be particularly effective.
• Strengthened Social Support Systems: Creating accessible pathways to education, employment, and community resources can help buffer risks associated with lower cognitive ability.

The Importance of Context in Low IQ and Alcohol Use Disorder Research

The research demonstrates that the association between cognitive traits and alcohol use disorder is shaped by both genetic liability and the broader sociocultural environment. Across multiple methods and samples, cognitive performance and IQ were associated with alcohol use disorder risk, but the nature of the association varied across contexts.

In the US-based cohort, for example, those with the lowest cognitive performance scores did not have significantly increased risk compared to average, contrasting with the Swedish findings where low IQ conferred substantial risk. This suggests that sociocultural factors such as educational access, healthcare systems, and state support programmes may shape how cognitive traits influence alcohol use disorder risk.

Looking Forward

This extensive research, spanning over 60 years of follow-up data and incorporating cutting-edge genetic analyses, provides compelling evidence that cognitive ability in adolescence represents a meaningful risk factor for alcohol use disorder. With 6.5% of the overall cohort developing alcohol use disorder during follow-up, and rates reaching 10% amongst those with low IQ, the public health implications are considerable.

The findings underscore the importance of considering cognitive development as part of comprehensive approaches to preventing substance use problems. By identifying vulnerable young people early and providing appropriate support, it may be possible to reduce the elevated risk associated with lower cognitive ability.

Importantly, the research demonstrates that individual genetic predispositions do not operate in isolation. The structural conditions of society—including access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunity—play a crucial role in determining whether cognitive vulnerabilities translate into substance use problems.

Source: (WRD News)

There’s blood on the hands of an industry that wraps itself in tie-dye and talks of “wellness.” Behind the carefully cultivated image of cannabis as a harmless plant medicine lies a devastating truth: young people who use marijuana face an 87% increased risk of attempting suicide. Not 8%. Not 17%. Eighty-seven percent.

These aren’t numbers conjured by prohibition-era scaremongering. They emerge from a rigorous systematic review and meta-analysis examining 500,408 participants across 18 studies. This is the kind of evidence that would trigger product recalls, congressional inquiries, and public health emergencies if we were discussing any substance without an army of lobbyists and cultural cheerleaders protecting its reputation.

Yet here we are, watching an entire generation’s mental health catastrophe unfold whilst cannabis culture shrugs, dissembles, and counts its profits.

When 87% Isn’t Enough to Matter

Let’s sit with that suicide attempt figure for a moment. An 87% increased risk amongst young cannabis users compared to non-users. Even after researchers adjusted for every conceivable confounding factor (socioeconomic status, family history, other substance use), the risk remained elevated at 80%. For suicidal ideation, the increase stands at 65%.

These are the kinds of risk elevations that pharmaceutical companies would be sued into oblivion for concealing. Yet somehow, when it comes to cannabis and youth suicide, we’re expected to smile politely whilst an industry built on wilful ignorance floods our communities with high-potency products specifically marketed to appeal to young people.

The cognitive dissonance is breathtaking. We claim to care about youth mental health. We wring our hands over rising suicide rates amongst 15 to 29-year-olds, the demographic for whom suicide remains the fourth leading cause of death globally. Then we turn around and normalise, commercialise, and celebrate a substance proven to dramatically increase their risk of suicidal behaviour.

Depression, Anxiety, and Convenient Amnesia

The suicide statistics are merely the most tragic endpoint of cannabis youth mental health harms. Young marijuana users show 51% higher odds of developing depression and 58% increased likelihood of experiencing anxiety. These aren’t subtle correlations requiring statistical gymnastics to detect. They’re blazing red flags visible from space.

Study after study, across multiple countries and methodologies, tells the same story: early cannabis initiation correlates with subsequent mental health deterioration. The earlier young people begin using, the earlier depressive symptoms emerge. As frequency increases (from occasional to weekly to daily use), mental health outcomes spiral downward with grim predictability.

But don’t expect cannabis culture to acknowledge any of this. Their playbook, borrowed wholesale from Big Tobacco’s greatest hits, involves manufacturing doubt, cherry-picking data, and dismissing inconvenient research as “reefer madness.” When confronted with evidence of harm, they pivot to legalisation talking points, criminal justice reform, or whatever rhetorical smokescreen proves most expedient.

The Neuroscience They’d Rather You Ignore

Here’s what actually happens when adolescents (whose brains won’t fully mature until their mid-twenties) consume cannabis regularly: THC disrupts cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CBR1), triggering a cascade of neurological interference. Nerve impulse transmission falters. Intraneuronal connectivity suffers. The production of neuronal growth factors essential for synapse formation gets disrupted during the most critical period of brain development.

Neuroimaging studies have documented grey matter loss in specific brain regions amongst chronic cannabis users. These are structural changes associated with psychiatric and mood disorders. This isn’t speculation. It’s observable, measurable damage to developing brains.

Yet the cannabis industry continues peddling its “natural” and “harmless” mythology, as though something being plant-derived renders it incapable of harm. By that logic, hemlock makes an excellent salad ingredient and belladonna belongs in your smoothie.

The Self-Medication Lie

When pressed about the risks linking cannabis and youth suicide, advocates often deploy the “self-medication” defence: vulnerable young people use marijuana to cope with pre-existing mental health challenges, they argue, creating a chicken-and-egg scenario that conveniently absolves cannabis of culpability.

Even if we accept this framing (and the evidence suggests it’s only part of the picture), it hardly exonerates the substance. What kind of “medicine” increases suicide attempt risk by 87%? What manner of “therapy” exacerbates the very conditions it purports to treat?

The self-medication narrative actually reveals cannabis culture’s profound cynicism. They’re essentially admitting that psychologically distressed teenagers and young adults are turning to their product, then shrugging when those same young people experience worsened outcomes. It’s the equivalent of selling alcohol to someone drowning and calling it a flotation device.

A Twenty-Billion-Dollar Lie

Global cannabis sales continue their meteoric rise, with legalisation spreading across Canada, multiple US states, Germany, Malta, Thailand, and South Africa. Consumption has surged 20% over the past decade. Marketing budgets rival those of major consumer brands. Product innovation (edibles, vapes, concentrates with THC levels our grandparents couldn’t have imagined) proceeds at breakneck pace.

And through it all, the industry maintains its pose of wounded innocence. According to them, they’re just providing what the people want. They’re correcting historical injustices, they insist. A safer alternative to alcohol is what they’re offering. Consumer choice is being respected.

What they’re actually doing is replicating every cynical strategy that allowed tobacco companies to hook generations of customers whilst denying the mounting evidence of harm. The difference is that cannabis has successfully cloaked itself in progressive politics and counterculture credibility, making it somehow gauche to point out that their products are destroying young people’s mental health and, in the most tragic cases, contributing to their deaths.

The Studies They Won’t Discuss

By 2021, 46% of countries identified cannabis as the predominant substance associated with drug abuse disorders. Thirty-four percent cited marijuana as the primary reason individuals sought treatment for substance abuse. These figures represent a global crisis hiding in plain sight.

Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) rates are climbing, with adolescents proving particularly vulnerable. Those who develop CUD show even higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal behaviour. It’s a vicious cycle that begins with “just trying it” and ends with grey matter loss and psychiatric disorders.

The research demonstrates clear dose-response relationships: more frequent cannabis consumption correlates with worse mental health outcomes. Daily users report intensified feelings of burdensomeness, thwarted belonging, and suicidal ideation. New consumption methods like vaping (marketed with the same sophisticated techniques that made Juul so devastatingly effective amongst teenagers) appear to amplify these risks.

Yet somehow, amidst this tsunami of evidence, cannabis culture has convinced itself and much of the public that marijuana is essentially harmless. It’s a marketing triumph and a public health catastrophe.

The Gender Gap They Ignore

Even the research landscape reveals telling gaps. Whilst most studies include mixed-gender samples, only a minority provide sex-disaggregated results. This matters enormously, given evidence that women with Cannabis Use Disorder exhibit higher prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders compared to men.

But conducting thorough, gender-specific research might reveal inconvenient truths. Better to maintain strategic ambiguity, continue the broad-brush reassurances, and avoid drilling down into the specific mechanisms of harm.

Profiting from Pandemic Trauma

The COVID-19 pandemic intensified mental health challenges amongst young people: daily disruptions, health anxieties, isolation, bereavement. In any sane response to this suffering, we’d be doing everything possible to protect vulnerable youth from substances that worsen mental health outcomes.

Instead, cannabis companies saw opportunity. Market expansion continued unabated. Product development accelerated. The push to normalise marijuana consumption amongst ever-younger demographics intensified.

When the dust settles on this era, when we finally acknowledge the full scope of cannabis youth mental health harms, we’ll look back with horror at how an industry was permitted to exploit a generation’s trauma for profit.

The Frequency Trap

The pattern is grimly consistent: occasional use leads to weekly use, weekly use escalates to daily use, and daily use correlates with the most severe mental health outcomes. Young people aren’t being told this. They’re being told cannabis is medicine, that it’s natural, that it’s safer than alcohol.

No one tells them that daily cannabis use intensifies feelings of hopelessness and social disconnection, the very psychological states that lead to suicidal crises. No one tells them that as THC potency increases, with today’s products vastly stronger than those from a decade ago, the psychiatric risks rise as well.

The cannabis industry knows all of this. They employ researchers, monitor studies, track trends. Their ignorance isn’t innocent. It’s calculated.

Beyond Doubt

The systematic review examining cannabis youth mental health outcomes encompassed over half a million participants. The methodology was rigorous. The findings were consistent across different study designs, countries, and time periods. This isn’t preliminary data requiring cautious interpretation. It’s evidence demanding urgent action.

Yet cannabis advocates continue their evidence-denying rampage, dismissing research that doesn’t support their narrative whilst trumpeting any study (however methodologically flawed) that suggests potential benefits. It’s the same playbook tobacco companies used for decades, the same cynical manipulation of scientific discourse in service of profit.

What We Owe Young People

Young people deserve honesty. They need adults who will prioritise their mental health and survival over cultural trends, political posturing, and corporate profits. We must also protect them from an industry that treats their developing brains as acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of market share.

Most urgently, we owe them recognition of what the evidence actually shows: cannabis consumption amongst young people correlates with dramatically increased risks of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. The 87% increased risk of suicide attempts isn’t a statistical artifact or a coincidence requiring elaborate alternative explanations. It’s a screaming alarm that we’re choosing to ignore.

The Reckoning to Come

History won’t be kind to this moment. Future generations will look back and ask how we knew (how the evidence was this clear, this consistent, this damning) and did nothing. How we allowed an industry to market psychoactive substances to vulnerable young people whilst their lobbyists wrapped themselves in social justice rhetoric and their accountants counted the profits.

They’ll ask why, in an era supposedly concerned with youth mental health, we simultaneously normalised a substance proven to increase suicide risk. Who benefited from our collective amnesia and who paid the price will be another question demanding answers.

The answers will be uncomfortable. The cannabis industry benefited. So did cannabis culture. Politicians seeking easy tax revenue profited as well. Meanwhile, young people (an entire generation of young people) paid with their mental health and, in the most heartbreaking cases, with their lives.

Choosing Courage Over Comfort

Challenging cannabis orthodoxy invites predictable pushback. The accusations are as reliable as they are tedious: prohibitionist, alarmist, anti-science. Never mind that the science actually supports concerns about cannabis and youth suicide. Never mind that the systematic reviews and meta-analyses tell a consistent story of harm.

Cannabis culture has perfected the art of deflection. When confronted with evidence of psychiatric risks, they pivot to criminal justice reform. Studies showing increased suicide risk are dismissed with claims that correlation isn’t causation. Neuroimaging revealing structural brain changes? Researchers must be biased, they say.

It’s exhausting. It’s also beside the point.

The question isn’t whether cannabis should be legal for adults or whether cannabis prohibition was unjust. The question is whether we’re willing to acknowledge that young people who use marijuana face dramatically elevated mental health risks, including an 87% increased likelihood of attempting suicide.

The evidence says yes. Cannabis culture says look over there.

The Bodies Left Behind

Behind every statistic is a young person whose life was cut short or irrevocably altered. That 87% increased suicide attempt risk represents actual teenagers and young adults who didn’t need to die. The elevated rates of depression (51% higher odds) and anxiety (58% increased likelihood) translate to students who dropped out, careers that never launched, relationships that never formed.

These aren’t abstract numbers. They’re someone’s child, someone’s sibling, someone’s friend. They deserved better than to be sacrificed to an industry that values profit over human life and a culture that values being seen as progressive over protecting the vulnerable.

The systematic review examining cannabis and youth suicide provides evidence we can no longer ignore. Young cannabis users face dramatically elevated risks for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. The dose-response relationships are clear. The neurological mechanisms are documented. The consistency across studies is undeniable.

What remains unclear is whether we possess the courage to act upon this evidence or whether we’ll continue pretending everything is fine whilst young people die.

Cannabis culture wants us to believe this is complicated, that more research is needed, that we’re scapegoating a harmless plant. It’s not complicated. The research exists. And the plant is demonstrably not harmless when consumed by developing brains.

The Evidence Cannot Be Ignored

Studies published between 2013 and 2025, examining periods ranging from one month to 40 years, paint a consistent picture. Whether prospective longitudinal studies, retrospective analyses, or cross-sectional research, the pattern holds. The meta-analysis included data from countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Ukraine, and Mexico. Different populations, different methodologies, same conclusion.

After adjustment for gender, age, ethnicity, living situation, education, employment, and other drug consumption, the elevated risks remained. This isn’t confounding. This isn’t coincidence. This is causation screaming to be acknowledged.

The odds ratios speak for themselves. Depression: 51% higher in cannabis users, 28% even after adjustment. Anxiety: 58% increased odds. Suicidal ideation: 50% to 65% higher depending on the model. Suicide attempts: 87% unadjusted, 80% adjusted.

These numbers represent individual human tragedies multiplied across hundreds of thousands of young lives. They represent families destroyed, potential unrealised, futures stolen. They represent the price we’re paying for allowing an industry to prioritise profits over the wellbeing of an entire generation.

The Industry’s Playbook

The cannabis industry has learned well from its predecessors. When tobacco companies faced mounting evidence of harm, they didn’t admit fault. Tobacco companies funded counter-research and emphasised personal choice. When confronted with evidence, they questioned the science, then delayed, deflected, and denied until the body count became impossible to ignore.

Cannabis companies are following the same script. Cannabis companies fund studies designed to find benefits and emphasise adult choice whilst their marketing clearly targets youth. When results don’t suit them, they question the methodology. Hiding behind progressive rhetoric, the industry continues building an addiction-for-profit empire.

The difference is that we’ve seen this playbook before. We know where it leads. We know how it ends. Yet somehow, we’re permitting the same tragedy to unfold with marijuana consumption amongst young people, wrapped in different packaging but delivering identical results: corporate profits built on human suffering.

What Honesty Demands

The evidence demands we abandon comfortable fictions about cannabis being harmless, natural, or therapeutic for young people. The systematic review encompassing over half a million participants presents findings too consistent to dismiss, too significant to downplay.

We need open, honest discussions about cannabis and youth suicide, without the spin of commercial interests or cultural agendas. Those in power should put young people’s wellbeing ahead of profit. Schools, parents, and communities must also share the plain facts about marijuana’s risks, especially its links to suicide and serious mental illness.

Most urgently, we need to question why, in an era supposedly concerned with youth mental health, we’re simultaneously normalising a substance that increases suicide attempt risk by 87%. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.

A Final Question

The only question left is: how many more young lives will we allow cannabis industry profits to claim before we finally say enough?

The research is unequivocal. Young cannabis users face 87% higher risk of suicide attempts. Young cannabis users experience 51% higher odds of depression and show a 58% greater likelihood of anxiety. Their rates of suicidal ideation rise by 65%, revealing just how severe the mental health risks truly are. These aren’t marginal increases. These are catastrophic elevations in harm.

Cannabis culture will continue manufacturing doubt. The industry will keep counting profits. Lobbyists will keep spinning narratives. But the evidence won’t change. The dead won’t come back. And history will record our choice: profits or young lives.

We know which one cannabis culture has chosen. The question is which one the rest of us will choose.

(Source: WRD News) 

Key Takeaways 

• Broad temporal and population spectrum on cannabis use & mental health.
• Cannabis linked to depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies in studies.
• Early cannabis use in youth leads to mental health issues in adulthood.
• Systematic review and meta-analysis updates cannabis mental health risks evidence.

Abstract: Cannabis is the most widely consumed illicit drug globally. In 2021, 46 % of countries identified cannabis as the predominant substance associated with drug abuse disorders, with 34 % indicating it as the primary cause for seeking treatment. Young individuals represent the largest consumer demographic, experiencing substantial negative health effects. Despite extensive research on its mental health impacts, many aspects remain unclear. This study examines cannabis use among young people including anxiety, depression, and suicidal behavior. Studies involving individuals aged 15–30 were included. Data sources included PubMed, Mendeley, Embase, WOS, CINAHL, and Scopus. After screening 6466 articles, 36 met the inclusion criteria, with 18 included in the meta-analysis. These studies were published between 2013 and 2025. The results indicated that the odds of depression were 51 % higher in young cannabis users (OR = 1.51, 95 %CI = 1.23–1.86), decreasing to 28 % after adjustment (aOR = 1.28, 95 %CI = 1.10–1.50). Anxiety showed a 58 % increase (OR = 1.58, 95 %CI = 1.15–2.15). For suicidal ideation, the increase ranged from 50 % in unadjusted models (OR = 1.50, 95 %CI = 1.05–2.14) to 65 % in adjusted models (aOR = 1.65 95 %CI = 1.40–1.93). Finally, the odds of suicide attempt were 87 % higher (OR = 1.87, 95 %CI = 1.25–2.80), remaining elevated at 80 % after adjustment (aOR = 1.80, 95 %CI = 1.30–2.49).

(Complete Research - Source: Science Direct )

Abstract

This commentary argues the need to prioritize regulation and abstinence-based prevention and recovery as critical services in efforts to maximize the reduction of substance-related harm and the promotion of mental health at a population-level. Treatment and harm reduction for those experiencing mental health and or substance use problems tends to be poorly integrated with regulatory and prevention approaches, which seek to reduce the development of these problems. This commentary examines evidence from Australia to argue the benefits of more deliberate service system integration based on life-course science. Harm reduction programs dominated the substance use prevention field in Australia until 2009 and were associated with high levels of youth substance use. The introduction of abstinence-based prevention programs and policies effectively reduced adolescent substance use and these reductions have flowed to generational reductions in adult substance use. The potential benefits of Australia’s movement to abstinence-based prevention continue to be disrupted by conflicting harm reduction treatment messages. This commentary outlines the argument to maximize substance use intervention effectiveness and mental health promotion by increasing investment in abstinence-based substance use regulation and prevention and then restructuring treatment and recovery services to more deliberately integrate with this emphasis. The benefits of this approach are argued to include reduction of substance use harm and mental health burden.

(Source: International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction)

The numbers tell a story that policymakers refuse to hear. Across the globe, millions of children grow up in households that parental alcohol and drug use ravages. In Australia, 1 million children live with at least one adult battling addiction. Furthermore, the European Union counts 9 million children with parents who have alcohol problems. Similarly, the United Kingdom harbours 2.6 million children of school age living with parental alcohol problems, whilst in the United States, more than 10% of children live with a parent struggling with alcohol use.

These are not merely statistics. Instead, these are children whose fundamental rights to safety, stability, and a childhood free from fear face systematic violation whilst society champions the “right” of adults to use substances without consequence. 

The Carefully Curated Cover-Up

The Victorian Auditor-General’s recent report on kinship care reveals not through what it examines, but rather through what it deliberately excludes. Specifically, the audit was “at pains to ensure” that only a “harm management” process review took place. Consequently, the audit precluded the sources and origins of harm that necessitate Out of Home Care (OOHC).

This represents carefully curated obfuscation, essentially a systemic avoidance of identifying and addressing the source of initial abuses and neglects that place children in harm’s way. Moreover, the report discusses finding “stable homes” for children, yet the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) has not determined what a stable placement is, has not collected baseline data, and has not assessed its progress against intended outcomes.

Here is what we know about stability: substance use does not make for a stable home in which to raise healthy and psychologically sound children. Nevertheless, this truth, however inconvenient to current policy trends promoting “harm reduction” and decriminalisation, remains inescapable.

Parental Substance Abuse Child Neglect: The Evidence Linking Substance Use and Child Harm

The Addiction Conference Revelation: At the 2022 Australia and New Zealand Addiction Conference, Odyssey House presented findings that should have reverberated through every child protection agency: “Every Drug Rehabilitation programme must see drug use as Family Violence. These go together.”

The Causal Versus Correlate Smokescreen: Pro-drug and alcohol-defending advocates often wield the “causal versus correlate” debate to diminish substance use culpability. Essentially, they inform us that at worst, substances merely correlate with child abuse. However, we have enough data on record to know that alcohol and other drugs involve themselves more often than not in the frequency, intensity, and ferocity of abuses that adults inflict on children.

The Statistical Reality: The evidence is overwhelming. In the United States, mothers convicted of child abuse are 3 times more likely to be alcoholics, whilst fathers are 10 times more likely to be alcoholics. Additionally, more than 50% of all confirmed abuse reports and 75% of child deaths involve the use of alcohol or other drugs by a parent. Meanwhile, in Europe, 16% of all cases of child abuse and neglect are alcohol-related. Furthermore, children are 52% more likely to have anxiety or depression when both parents regularly consume alcohol.

The Alcohol Availability Connection: A groundbreaking study from Ohio State University demolished any remaining pretence that substance availability and child harm are unrelated. Specifically, research in Sacramento, California found that having one more off-premises alcohol outlet in a census tract related to 13.5% more substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect and 10.5% more entries into foster care. Moreover, a 1% higher per capita volume of alcohol consumed in a neighbourhood related to 3.2% more children entering foster care due to alcohol-related concerns.

Professor Bridget Freisthler, the study’s lead author, stated clearly: “We have to pay more attention to how the supply and availability of alcohol has an impact on child maltreatment if we want to make a real difference.”

The Push for More Permission: Yet as evidence mounts, pro-drug activists push for decriminalisation and “permission models” that would extend the same protections currently enjoyed by alcohol to cannabis, cocaine, mushrooms, and crystal methamphetamine. Indeed, the Kincare industry in South East Queensland is reportedly “booming” because ice impacts parents’ ability to care for their children. Consequently, the insanity of promoting permission models for substance use whilst children suffer cannot be overstated.

(complete expose) : https://wrdnews.org/parental-substance-abuse-child-neglect-the-kincare-crisis/)