The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the University of MIchigan released a report on drug use among adolescents indicating slight changes for most drugs. The biggest changes come from declining alcohol and tobacco use. Access to street drugs remains easy but variable, and the ages at which teens are using drugs -- some as young as the 8th grade -- continues to alarm the authors.
This study has been repeated each year since 1975, and each represents only one point in time. Some trends are, however, apparent. One, on marijuana use, suggests only a modest increase of use among eighth graders from 11.1 percent to 11.2 percent between 2007 and 2008.
Looking at trends, however, a different pattern emerges. Of the 8th grade students polled in 2004, 16.4 percent had used marijuana or hashish. Two years later, as 10th graders, the number jumped to 3.18 percent; and, as 12th graders, in 2008, the numbers jumped again to 42.6 percent of the students. Between 2007 and 2008 the changes appear to be smaller, up or down about one percent.
Marijuana is controversial because it appears to be associated with psychosis for vulnerable individuals yet is widely available as a result of a flooded market where it has been made legal for medical purposes.
Among the findings highlighted by the National Institutes of Health are:
•For the first time, the hallucinogenic salvia leaf, was included in the survey and 5.7 percent of high school seniors reported using it in the past year.
•About one-in-six 12th-graders reported using a prescription drug non-medically within the past year.
•Fewer students find ecstacy easy to obtain.
Prevention
Prevention remains a problem because it must be addressed drug by drug. Urban legends about ecstacy. "To a considerable degree, prevention must occur drug by drug, because people will not necessarily generalize the adverse consequences of one drug to the use of others," note the University of Michigan authors. Many drugs are making a comeback because of perceived benefits outweigh the consequences and what the authors call "generational forgetting."
In prepared comments, Dr. Nora Volkow, NIDA Director, referred to the "good news/bad news" in the report. "The decline in cigarette smoking translates to longer, healthier lives for today's young people," she said."And while it is disheartening that smokeless tobacco use is up again, the survey is telling us where to focus prevention efforts."
