Issues Final Project: Substance Abuse in High School

For my final project in Issues I will be looking closer into the topic of substance abuse in high school. The main substances that I will be focusing on are the two major ones the have affected a good majority of high school students in one way or another: Drinking and Marijuana usage. These two substances are the most abused by high school students and most people have had experiences with both of these substances. What I intend to research is the statistics that go along with these substances: like amount who use or have tried these substances, deaths, penalties, what can be done to lower amount who use, and so on. This topic has intrigued me because as a high school student I can connect with it more so than I can with a topic about revolts overseas.  
I began my research by going to http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/ which is one of the most recognizable organizations that combat substance abuse in teens. The above the influence website gave detail descriptions of what Marijuana and alcohol contain and what the negative side affects are (but others may see as good.) This website had great information, but obviously was extremely biased.
I also looked at the website http://journals.lww.com/journaladdictionmedicine/Fulltext/2011/03000/Gender_Differences_in_Adolescent_Marijuana_Use_and.10.aspx which contained in ti an article with a detailed study on Connecticut high schoolers and their thoughts and uses of Marijuana. It stated that out of 4523 adolescents that 1655 participants (40.4%) endorsed lifetime marijuana use and 1004 participants (24.5%) endorsed past 30-day use (participants could be members of both the lifetime and past 30-day marijuana use groups); 2442 participants (59.6%) denied lifetime marijuana use. This website broke down and analyzed different reasons as to why someone would use Marijuana and who is more likely to smoke pot. This entry also went into the long term affects of Marijuana on adolescents.
As I continue my research I want to include the affects of legalization and lowering of drinking age limit to see if at all this could affect the amount of kids who abuse these substances.