o Can Lead to Premature Death. Eighty-two percent of all people who try cigarettes do so by age eighteen.35 Approximately 4.5 million American children under eighteen now smoke, and every day another three thousand adolescents become regular smokers.36 Seventy percent of adolescent smokers say they would not have started if they could choose again.37 In excess of 400,000 people die every year from smoking-related diseases -- more than from alcohol, crack, heroin, murder, suicide, car accidents, and AIDS combined.38 Alcohol has a devastating impact on young people. Eight young people a day die in alcohol-related car crashes.39 According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 7,738 intoxicated drivers between the ages of sixteen and twenty were fatally injured in 1996.40 The younger an individual starts drinking and the greater the intensity and frequency of alcohol consumption, the greater the risk of using other drugs.41 Two and-a-half million teenagers reported they did not know that a person can die from alcohol overdose.42 Drug Abuse Burdens the Workplace. Seventy-one percent of all illicit drug users aged eighteen and older (7.4 million adults) are employed, including 5.4 million full-time workers and 1.9 million part-time workers.43 Drug users decrease workplace productivity. An ongoing, nationwide study conducted by the U.S. Postal Service has compared the job performance of drug users versus non-users. Among drug users, absenteeism is 66 percent higher, health benefit utilization is 84 percent greater in dollar terms, disciplinary actions are 90 percent higher, and there is significantly higher employee turnover.44 The workplace can function as a conduit for information on substance-abuse prevention and identification both to adults -- many of whom, as parents, are not being reached through more traditional means -- and to youth who are employed while attending school. The threat of job loss remains one of the mos...
