December 11, 2007 This year's Monitoring the Future survey found encouraging drops in both smoking and illicit drug use by eighth graders, and the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) credited the declines to “a large science-based effort throughout the public health community to drive down the rates of smoking, illicit drug, and alcohol use among teens.” The director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Nora Volkow said her agency will be watching closely over the next two years to see if the decline will stick as the kids get older. “If this change in attitude is carried with them throughout the rest of their teen years, we could see a dramatic drop in smoking-related deaths in their generation,” Volkow said. The Monitoring the Future survey, now in its 33rd year, is a series of independent surveys of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan under a grant from the NIDA. This year’s findings, while encouraging for eighth graders, revealed other problems, including that prescription drug abuse remains high, with Vicodin one of the most commonly abused drugs among 12th graders. Also of concern is a softening of attitudes toward MDMA (Ecstasy) and LSD in the younger grades, with a decrease in perceived harmfulness at 10th grade and an increase in Ecstasy use by 10th and 12th graders over the past two years. Information about the Monitoring the Future survey is available online at http://monitoringthefuture.org. |
