L.A.\u2019s teens\u2019 suicide rates are 60% below the national average and have plunged 40% since 1990 and 75% since 1970. Yet, LA experts and media frantically strive to persuade teens they\u2019re suicidal.<\/h6>\n
Suicide, except to end irreversible pain and debilitation, is a tragedy. The best science should be applied to prevent it.<\/p>\n
Yet, authorities and media reporters distort suicide by teenagers as a mere commodity manipulable to whatever serves their self-aggrandizement, alarmism, and profit.<\/p>\n
Back in 1997, before the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u00a0became the closed-up billionaire-owned mess it is today, I convinced a reporter to write an article on the city\u2019s massive decline in suicide, including among teenagers. Figure 1 illustrates the trend.<\/p>\n I had thought such a massive, encouraging decline would break the press\u2019s rigid negativism on covering teenagers. Was I dumb.<\/p>\n The resulting\u00a0front-page article<\/a>\u00a0began by claiming 2 pre-teen children killing themselves had never occurred before in history. (Tragedies? Yes. New? No. I sent them the oldest vital stats record available showing 3 suicides among L.A. children 9 and younger in 1908. No correction, of course.)<\/p>\n Then followed paragraphs and paragraphs of scary sensationalism about how parents and professionals should panic that bleak music, violent games, television, and baffling \u201cteenage\u201d rashness was driving ever-younger 1990s teens to kill themselves.<\/p>\n Oh, by the way, the final paragraphs murmured, L.A. teen suicide rates HAD FALLEN sharply in recent decades. In short, the article you just read was a crock.<\/p>\n I was furious at the time but, in retrospect, should have been grateful. At least the 1997 article\u00a0mentioned<\/em>, albeit at its ass end, that teen suicide was declining. The\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0back then (but not now) published op-eds\u00a0like mine<\/a>\u00a0challenging such bad reporting.<\/p>\n My na\u00efve conceit was that genuinely concerned, well-motivated authorities would be eager to study why teen suicide fell so much to\u2026 you know\u2026 learn what might prevent more. L.A.\u2019s pioneering\u00a0Suicide Prevention Center<\/a>\u00a0founded by concerned professionals had organized a conference at which experts would confab on how to build on these highly encouraging youthful trends. They had to cancel it when only\u00a0four people<\/em>\u00a0registered.<\/p>\n Things got worse<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2026, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u00a0spiced its\u00a0unhinged prose on the \u201csocial media addiction\u201d trial<\/a>\u00a0(an article\u00a0Taylor Lorenz<\/a>\u00a0dismembered) with a link to\u00a0another recent piece<\/a>\u00a0headlined, \u201cAs teen suicide surges\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n The headline led an article stuffed with standard-issue garbage: \u201cIn California, teen suicide has been rising faster than in most states\u201d; \u201cthe age at which children kill themselves has been falling\u201d; \u201cthe same strong social connections long considered protective for girls are now putting them at risk\u201d; \u201cthe rate among Black and Asian youths is now higher than among white ones\u201d; on \u201csocial media\u2026 graphic details and salacious speculation are algorithmically funneled to children\u201d; \u201cschool policies may be making things worse\u201d; more \u201cpediatric psychiatrists\u201d are needed; the usual.<\/p>\n Rising? Check. Younger? Check. Girls? Check. Minorities? Check. Pop culture? Check. Schools? Check. More shrinks? Check. The article\u2019s boilerplate nonsense appears in EVERY article about teen suicide going back decades.<\/p>\n All junk<\/strong><\/p>\n Teen suicide has not been \u201crising in California.\u201d It is not rising \u201cfaster than in other states.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n CDC suicide numbers show that L.A., a giant county with 1.1 million teenagers, now averages around 40 suicides among ages under 20 per year, including 7 among teens under age 15 and 14 among girls. Small numbers like these fluctuate, allowing any unscrupulous player to pick any years to compare to declare whatever they want.<\/p>\n The general trends: rates plummeted from the 1970s to around 2000, went up and down in the 2000s, rose in the 2010s, then fell in the 2020s for\u00a0both teens and adults<\/em>\u00a0(see Figures 1, 2). Normally, analysts would look for trends that affect all ages, such as the 2008 economic crash, 2010s opiate epidemic, 2020-22 COVID-19 pandemic, and massive increase in student debt. But that assumes interest in real causes.<\/p>\n Teen girls\u2019 suicides remain rare<\/a>, even in a huge metropolis<\/strong><\/p>\n Back in the early 1970s, around 70 L.A. boys and 50 girls committed suicide every year; in the 2020s\u2019, about 25 boys and 14 girls per year; in between, a general decline with small numbers bouncing around. The larger trends are shown in Figure 3.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0article hyped girls\u2019 hospital emergency visits for \u201csuicide attempts.\u201d Yet, nowhere did it (or any other article I can find) ever mention that teen girls are\u00a0far less likely\u00a0<\/em>than males of every age and females of every adult age to commit suicide. A teenager is 2 to 3 times more likely to suffer a parent committing suicide than the other way around, but when have you ever seen an article on that?<\/p>\n None of the experts quoted put two and two together to contemplate whether \u201csuicide attempts\u201d are troubled girls\u2019 way to get attention for severe problems before they result in actual suicide. These are forbidden topics. Rigid press rules ban comparing teens favorably to adults or treating girls as anything other than brainless self-destructors.<\/p>\n Instead, the article declared that \u201cnew data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show 1 in 3 teen girls has seriously considered suicide, sparking fears among some suicidologists that the same strong social connections long considered protective for girls are now putting them at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Unconscionably, the article ignores that the same\u00a0CDC\u2019s survey<\/a>\u00a0showed the\u00a0biggest reason\u00a0<\/a>by far<\/a><\/em>\u00a0that teen girls attempt suicide and harm themselves is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0their \u201csocial connections.\u201d It is their parents\u2019 abuses and parents\u2019 \u201csevere\u201d mental health, drug\/alcohol, and violence problems in their homes.<\/p>\n Blacks\u2019 and Asians\u2019 suicide rates are not \u201chigher than among Whites.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!Erua!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff425f4f1-4939-466e-8bce-a65104e31e74_2736x1380.png)
<\/picture>\nSource for figures: Centers for Disease Control,\u00a0Compressed mortality file<\/a>, 1968-1998;\u00a0Multiple cause of death<\/a>, 1999-2024. Includes certified suicides and suicide-suspected undetermined deaths. Rates for teens are all suicides for under age 20 divided by population age 15-19. Trendlines (dotted) are logarithmic (y = a * ln(x) + b).<\/h5>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!O0cl!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff96d00ec-ae75-447a-9176-c4830e504e47_2729x1311.png)
<\/picture>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!196A!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F46c1d371-b91c-4659-95e1-11f9a306325e_2598x1311.png)
<\/picture>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!c7aW!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9427f33b-2b66-4c30-ba07-78206c4e22b9_1230x423.png)
<\/picture>\n