Adolescence is a time in our lives when we’re naturally curious and eager to explore the world in new and exciting ways. However, the brains of teens and even young adults are not fully developed enough at this stage to make rational, informed decisions and lack mechanisms to curb the impulse for risk taking behavior. The latest research shows that our brains are not fully developed until our early to mid- 20s. When you put that together with the fact that adolescence is also a time we are pushing boundaries, you can begin to understand why drug and alcohol experimentation often begins in the teen years. To compound the situation, we now have evidence indicating that the use of alcohol, p