The Region : Youths Polled on Drug-Using Parents

About 60% of Southern California’s teen-agers would consider telling the police if they discovered their parents were using illegal drugs, according to results of a survey by a Los Angeles-based opinion research firm. Contemporary Psychology Associates co-directors Robert R. Butterworth and Daniela L. Alloro said they sampled a group of 232 Southern California youths from 12 to 13 years old and found that 67.9% of the girls and 56.4% of the boys said they might turn their parents in. Slightly more than 49% said they approved of recent publicized cases in which youngsters turned in drug-using parents, while only 37% expressed disapproval. On the other hand, Butterworth and Alloro told a news conference, about one in seven (14.2%) of the youngsters surveyed admitted that they had tried illegal drugs.