I found this article considerably amusing. According to a survey conducted by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reports of marijuana and other illicit drug use among the deconstructionist generation* (ages 60-42) has risen by an average of over 60% during the four year period ('02-'05)**. Meanwhile, American teens' (age 12-17) drug use has declined by an average of [a shade under] 15% in the same time frame. The author, Donna Leinwand of USA Today states,
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"Federal anti-drug officials say the survey indicates that while some baby boomers who were in their teens and 20s when drug-use rates peaked in the 1970s are taking their drug habits well into middle age, today's youths aren't embracing drugs as enthusiastically."
- (Boomers...Push Up Overall Rates)
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According to John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, substance abuse has been viewed euphemistically by this group of individuals as a rite of passage into [young] adulthood or ‘a coming of age’. Apparently for some, this has become a tradition carried on throughout their lifetimes.
-NM
endnotes:
*deconstruction and poststructural are literary definitions for the [post]modern age controlled by the baby boom generation
** 2002-2005 inclusive = 4 years (that means you count all of 2002 and 2005, don't just subtract the numbers, silly!)
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