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Sir.—Middle-class girls aged 14 to 17 years old (mean age, 15.2 years) who were enrolled in a long-term adolescent drug treatment program were surveyed. Of the 82 girls in the group, 80 (97%) had baby-sat on occasion before entering the drug treatment program, and nine girls (11%) stated that they and their friends had blown two to four puffs of marijuana smoke into the faces, noses, or mouths of their young charges and by doing so made them "high" on pot. One of us (R.H.S.) conducted an in-depth, structured interview with each of the nine girls who got innocent children high.
The teenagers had smoked marijuana an average of 2.5 times per day, three to seven days (mean, 5.2 days) a week for six to 36 months (mean, 16 months), and they were all from middle-class backgrounds. The 25 children whom the baby-sitters intoxicated (13 girls and 12 boys)