Nine out of 10 Americans who meet the medical criteria for addiction started smoking, drinking, or using other drugs before age 18, according to a national study released today by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

Adolescent Substance Use: America’s #1 Public Health Problem reveals that adolescence is the critical period for the initiation of substance use and its consequences. The CASA report finds 1 in 4 Americans who began using any addictive substance before age 18 are addicted, compared to 1 in 25 Americans who started using at age 21 or older.

"As parents, siblings, neighbors and leaders, we must work together and remain vigilant in our efforts to generate greater awareness about the dangers of substance misuse and the suffering, violence and death that far too often results when our children use alcohol and other drugs. We must encourage our teens to make the right choices, resist peer pressure and recognize that substance use by teens can have life-altering and tragic consequences," said Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34), a member of the CASA National Advisory Commission on Substance Use Among America's High School Age Teens and the author of a 2006 law to combat underage drinking.

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