Keep Up the Good Work: Teens are Drinking Less, Smoking Less, and Using Fewer Drugs

If you were in 8th, 10th, or 12th grade in January, you might have filled out a long survey asking (anonymously) whether you had used different drugs—including alcohol, cigarettes, and illicit drugs—and what your attitudes about drugs were. Every year NIDA asks more than 40,000 students in about 400 schools around the country to take part in our big survey, called Monitoring the Future, which helps us know what students think about drugs and how many people take them. Well, the 2014 results are in … and it’s mostly good news! For several years straight, teens have been drinking less alcohol, smoking fewer cigarettes, and, with a few exceptions, using fewer illicit drugs. 2014 continued that trend. Even marijuana remained level, instead of increasing, which is pretty good news considering that marijuana has been made legal for adults in a few states and has gotten so much positive press by people who want to make it legal everywhere. So far, that doesn’t seem to have made teens more likely to use marijuana. Most teens disapprove of marijuana This year, like last year, about one in five high school seniors, one in six 10th graders, and less than one in fifteen 8th graders had used marijuana in the month before the survey. If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that there’s a lot of scientific research showing that heavy marijuana use might do lasting damage to a person’s brain if they use it during their teen years, before their brain is fully developed. Thi...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - Category: Addiction Authors: Source Type: blogs