Adolescent use of drugs, alcohol & cigarettes at historical lows

By Aubree Schaefer

The survey, “Monitoring the Future (MTF),” funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, has been conducted by the University of Michigan to collect and log attitudes about drugs, alcohol and cigarettes and use trends among adolescent students across the United States.

This year’s 2015 MTF survey results gathered from 44,892 students in 382 secondary schools revealed some good news. Eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders showed a decreasing trend in use of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes over the timespan of the past five years, with many hitting lowest percentages since 1975.

"Since the recent peak rate of 61% in 1997, there has been a fairly steady downward march in alcohol use among adolescents," said Lloyd Johnston, the study's principal investigator, in a news release. "The proportion of teens reporting any alcohol use in the prior year has fallen by about a third."

The reported numbers for prescription opioid misuse (other than heroin), heroin use and synthetic cannabinoids (synthetic marijuana) use all prove to be on a significant decline in at least the past five years despite recent speculation of drug epidemics.

However, the one outlier for the category of illicit drugs that is an area of concern is marijuana. Marijuana has been at a plateau since 2010 “despite softening of perceived risks," yet consistent with a decline in personal disapproval of use. While still high, daily use of marijuana (20 or more occasions in 30 days) has declined in the short term.

Another area of concern is e-cigarettes. While cigarette smoking has hit historical lows with only 8% of three grades combined reporting smoking in the past month, e-cigarette use is still considerably high.

Richard Miech, a senior investigator of the study, said in a news release, "Part of the reason for the popularity of e-cigarettes is the perception among teens that they do not harm health."

All-in-all, the majority of the results prove encouraging for the future.
"Such a reduction can translate eventually into preventing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths as well as many serious diseases," Johnston is quoted as saying.