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New Study Reveals a Decline in Drug Use in American Teens
11-Dec-2007
Written by: Stacey Eisenberg
Youth Using Less Illicit Drugs
A report by Reuters today reveals the results of a recent study on the use of illicit drugs by U.S. teens. Apparently, overall use has dropped in the past decade, but ecstasy and prescription medication use has increased.
In 2007, thirteen percent of 13-14 year-old eighth graders reported using an illicit drug at least once in the last twelve months. This figure is nearly half what it was in 1996.
The research comes from the annual report on U.S. youth drug use released by the White House and U.S. National Institute of Drug Abuse. The study is based on a survey of over 48,000 students from the eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades at over 400 public and private schools in America.
University of Michigan researcher Lloyd Johnston said, “The cumulative declines since recent peak levels of drug involvement in the mid-1990’s are quite substantial, especially among the youngest students.
President Bush praised the findings as evidence that his anti-drug efforts have been successful. The drugs that have seen the most decline in use are marijuana and stimulants including amphetamines, Ritalin and methamphetamine (“meth”).
Marijuana remains the most used of all illicit drugs, and ecstasy and prescription drugs have seen the greatest increases in usage. Among 10th graders, 3.5 percent said they have taken it at least once in the last year, and 4.5 percent of 12th graders said the same.
Drugs that were found to have no change in use this year in youth were cocaine, crack cocaine, LSD, other hallucinogens and heroin.
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