Overall teen drug use continues gradual decline, but use of inhalants rises

Updated 11:45 PM January 7, 2005

Overall teen drug use continues gradual decline,
but use of inhalants rises

By Joseph Serwach
News Service

The proportion of American 8th-, 10th- and 12th-grade students who reported using any illicit drug in the prior 12 months continued a gradual decline in 2004, according to the latest national survey of 50,000 students in the Monitoring the Future study.

This decline has continued since 1996 among the nation’s 8th-grade students, among whom there now has been a one-third decline in annual prevalence of using any illicit drug (from 23.6 percent in 1996 to 15.2 percent in 2004). This is the third year of decline among the 10th and 12th graders, following some years of stability in use.

In 2004, the proportions indicating any use of an illicit drug in the prior 12 months were 15 percent, 31 percent and 39 percent in grades 8, 10 and 12, respectively. The proportions of those ever having tried an illicit drug in their lifetime were 22 percent, 40 percent and 51 percent, respectively.

Marijuana—by far the most widely used of the illicit drugs—also showed a decline in 2004, with small, not statistically significant declines occurring in all grades. Since the recent peak year of 1996, there has been a more than one-third (36 percent) decline in the annual prevalence of marijuana use among 8th graders, from 18.3 percent to 11.8 percent in 2004. Tenth and 12th graders showed a more modest decline, mostly because their use held steady from 1997 to 2001, before beginning to decline.

Over the past two years, there has been an increase in the proportion of students seeing marijuana use as dangerous; this change in beliefs may well explain some of the recent gradual decline in use. Personal disapproval of marijuana use increased some this year as well.

“Quite possibly, the media campaign aimed at marijuana use that has been undertaken by the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, in collaboration with the Partnership for a Drug Free America, has been having its intended effect,” says U-M researcher Lloyd Johnston, the study’s principal investigator. “I am not aware of any other social influence process that could explain these changes in how young people view marijuana.”

Monitoring the Future involves annual surveys of approximately 50,000 secondary school students in roughly 400 schools nationwide. The samples are nationally representative of all students enrolled in grades 8, 10 and 12 in public and private secondary schools in the United States. The study is now in its 30th year, having begun surveys of high school seniors in 1975.

It is sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse under a series of competing research grants made to the Institute for Social Research (ISR). The authors are Johnston, Patrick O’Malley, Jerald Bachman and John Schulenberg—all psychologists and research professors at ISR.

The proportion of students reporting having used any illicit drug other than marijuana fell less than did marijuana in 2004. The indicator for 12th graders showed a small increase. There are many drugs in this class, however, some of which showed a decrease in use and many of which held steady. Among those showing modest declines this year were ecstasy, amphetamines, methamphetamine, PCP, Vicodin, ketamine and steroids.

“Because ecstasy use had been in a pattern of sharp increase in recent years, its turnaround two years ago and continued decline in all three grades last year were very important developments,” Johnston says. In 2004, the downward trend continued, but at a decelerated rate.

The resurgence of inhalant use in all three grades, but particularly among the younger students—the 8th graders—is one of the more troublesome findings this year, researchers say. “The continued rise in OxyContin use among high school seniors—even though it is not a statistically significant one—continues to concern us,” Johnston says, “particularly given the relatively high prevalence rate already attained by this highly addictive narcotic drug.”

For more information about Monitoring the Future and about specific findings from this study, visit http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/.

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Overall teen drug use continues gradual decline, but use of inhalants rises

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Overall teen drug use continues gradual decline,
but use of inhalants rises