U.S. teen drug use down, but problems remain: survey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Overall use of illicit drugs by U.S. teenagers has dropped in the past decade, but use of the drug ecstasy is up and abuse of prescription medications remains worrisome, researchers said on Tuesday.
Thirteen percent of eighth grade students reported using an illicit drug at least once in the past year in 2007, down nearly half from 24 percent in 1996, University of Michigan researchers said. Such students are generally 13 or 14 years old.
The annual report on U.S. youth drug use was released by the White House and U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. The results stem from a survey of 48,025 students from 403 U.S. public and private schools in eighth, 10th and 12th grades.
President George W. Bush touted the findings as evidence that his anti-drug efforts have worked.
"On the one hand we'll interdict and prevent and disrupt drug supply networks. And on the other hand, we'll work to convince people they shouldn't use drugs in the first place and those that have, there's recovery programs for you," he said.
The researchers who conducted the study noted the decline started in the 1990s.
"The cumulative declines since recent peak levels of drug involvement in the mid-1990s are quite substantial, especially among the youngest students," University of Michigan researcher Lloyd Johnston said in a statement.
Use of the drug MDMA, commonly called ecstasy, is growing, the report found. It also indicated nonmedical use of prescription medications remains a significant concern, with 15 percent of 12th graders in 2007 reporting using a prescription drug for nonmedical reasons in the prior year.
GRADUAL DECLINES
Teenagers in all three grade levels displayed a gradual decline in the numbers reporting use of illicit drugs, with the decline most pronounced among the eighth graders.
The survey found that 28 percent of 10th graders in 2007 reported use of an illicit drug at least once in the prior year, down from 39 percent in 1997. Among 12th graders, that number was 36 percent, down from a recent peak of 42 percent in 1997, the survey found.
All three grades showed a continuing decline in 2007, although only the decline in eighth grade from the 2006 results -- a drop of 1.6 percentage points -- was of statistical significance, the researchers said.
The drugs most responsible for this year's modest declines were marijuana and various stimulants including amphetamines, Ritalin (prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), methamphetamine, often called "meth," and crystal methamphetamine, the researchers said.
Marijuana is still the most widely used of all illicit drugs.
Ecstasy use among teenagers fell sharply in the beginning of this decade but its use has begun to rise again. Among 10th graders, 3.5 percent said this year they had used it sometime in the past 12 months, up from a recent low of 2.4 percent in 2004. In 12th grade, that figure rose from a recent low of 3 percent in 2005 to 4.5 percent in 2007, the researchers said.
The survey found no change this year in youth use of a number of illicit drugs, including cocaine, crack cocaine, LSD, other hallucinogens, heroin and many prescription drugs used for nonmedical purposes such as the painkillers OxyContin and Vicodin. Between 2 and 5 percent of those in the three grades use cocaine, the survey found.
(Editing by Maggie Fox)
