Illicit drug use among teenagers dropped slightly over the past year,
according to results from the 2004 Monitoring the Future Survey, but the use
of inhalants and the narcotic Oxycontin rose.
The data mark the eighth straight year of decline in overall drug use for
the nation's eighth graders, and a three-year decline in overall drug use for
10th and 12th graders.
Researchers from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research
in Ann Arbor began collecting data on drug, alcohol, and cigarette use among
secondary school students in 1975.
Last year they interviewed 17,413 eighth graders, 16,839 10th graders, and
15,222 12th graders for a total of 49,474 students in 406 public and private
secondary schools in the United States.
The proportion of students who reported any drug use during the past year
was 15 percent, 31 percent, and 39 percent among students in grades eight, 10,
and 12, respectively.
The proportion who reported ever using an illicit drug in their lifetime
was 22 percent for eighth graders, 40 percent for 10th graders, and 51 percent
for 12th graders.
Still, alcohol remains the "drug of choice" for older
teens—70.6 percent of 12th graders reported using alcohol during the
preceding year, and 14.5 percent of eighth graders, 35 percent of 10th
graders, and 52 percent of 12th graders reported being drunk during the
preceding year.
Students in all three grades showed small, not statistically significant
declines in the use of marijuana (including hashish). In 2004, 11.8 percent of
eighth graders, 27.5 percent of 10th graders, and 34.3 percent of 12th graders
used marijuana during the prior year.
Eighth graders have experienced the biggest drops in marijuana use since
1996, the survey year in which marijuana usage peaked—in 1996, 18.3
percent of eighth graders reported using marijuana during the preceding
year.
Findings from the 2004 Monitoring the Future Survey show decreases in the
use of other drugs. Among them:
Not all of the news from the survey was positive, however. The use of some
illicit drugs remained steady between 2003 and 2004, according to the results.
For example:
The survey also found that the use of some drugs by teenagers increased
last year.
Researchers began monitoring Oxycontin use in 2002 and last year reported
some increase in annual use among all three grades. While use among eighth and
10th graders last year remained stable, the proportion of 12th graders who
reported using Oxycontin during the previous two years rose from 4 percent in
2002 to 5 percent last year.
"Considering the addictive potential of this drug, which is a
powerful synthetic narcotic used to control pain, we think that these are
disturbingly high rates of involvement by American young people," said
Lloyd Johnston, Ph.D., the study's principal investigator, in a press release
from the University of Michigan.
In addition, the use of inhalants rose among all three grades from 2003 to
2004. Inhalants encompass a range of substances such as paint thinner, butane,
and nail-polish remover, for instance.
In 2004 past-year inhalant use was highest for eighth graders (9.6
percent). About 6 percent of 10th graders and 4 percent of 12th graders used
inhalants over the preceding year.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse sponsors the Monitoring the Future
Study each year.