Last update - 00:00 19/09/2007
Study: Most immigrant teens from CIS don't view themselves as Israelis
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
Only a third of teens who came to Israel from the former Soviet Union say that they identify themselves as Israeli, a new study has found.
The study also found that almost 90 percent of youths from the former Soviet Union, now the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), reported drinking alcohol in the past year. A third got drunk at least four times, and 36 percent reported that they used drugs.
Almost a third of those who used drugs, 10 percent in total, reported that they committed violent acts under the influence of the drugs.
"Most of the youths from families from the CIS do not see themselves as Israeli. They feel rejected by Israeli-born youths and want to associate only with those from the CIS," said Haim Messing, director general of the Israel Anti-Drug Abuse Foundation (IADAF). Messing was speaking yesterday at a press conference to announce the results of the first study on drug and alcohol use among youths from the CIS.
The study surveyed some 750 youths between the ages 12 and 18, including some born in the CIS and others born here, but whose parents immigrated from the CIS after 1990. It was conducted by Dr. Arnon Edelstein of the Hebrew University's criminology department and Dr. Rachel Hamburger, IADAF's chief scientist.
The researchers discovered several risk factors that led to use of psychoactive drugs among teens in the study: dropping out of school, growing up in a single-parent family, a non-Jewish mother (mostly among drug users), a difficult financial situation and a lack of drug and alcohol abuse education.
Additionally, drug and alcohol use was much lower among teens born in Israel: While 80 percent of former CIS teens who are still in school reported drinking during the last year, only 49 percent of the Israeli-born teens reported the same. A quarter of the immigrants still in school reported using drugs, compared to only 10 percent of non-immigrants. The gaps were similar even among teens of both groups who dropped out of school.
Of immigrants who use drugs, 49 percent are neither in school or working.
"The research proves for the umpteenth time that the main causes of violence in society are drugs and alcohol," Messing said. "Not enough attention is paid to this. People are treating the results of the violence instead of the causes."
He added that IADAF has found an enormous amount of ignorance about drug and alcohol abuse among immigrants from the CIS. The authority therefore recently started a hotline in Russian for parents who want to know how to identify whether their children are using drugs.
Almost 80 percent of the teens in the survey who reported using drugs said that their parents did not know.