Cigarette, Alcohol Use by Teens is Down, But other Drug Use is Up

Cigarette and alcohol use by eighth, 10th and 12th-graders are at their lowest points since 1975, according to a national survey.

But that news is tempered by continued high rates of abuse of other tobacco products -- like hookahs, small cigars and smokeless tobacco -- and by marijuana and prescription drugs.

The upshot of the report: More teens smoke marijuana than cigarettes, and alcohol is still the drug of choice for kids.

The annual Monitoring the Future survey of eighth, 10th, and 12th-graders is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The survey was conducted in classrooms earlier this year.

Strongsville Detective Lt. John Janowski said that while the department makes few arrests for underage cigarette smoking, it sees continued use of marijuana by both adults and teens.

"It's been pretty steady," he said.

Prescription drug use "as a whole has gone up," Janowski added, although he said he does not believe Strongsville has seen more teens using them lately.

The 2011 survey results showed that 18.7 percent of 12th-graders reported current (past-month) cigarette use, compared to a recent peak rate of 36.5 percent in 1997 and 21.6 percent five years ago.

Only 6.1 percent of eighth-graders reported current smoking, compared to a recent peak of 21 percent in 1996 and 8.7 percent five years ago.

For alcohol, 63.5 percent of 12th-graders reported past year use, compared to a recent peak of 74.8 percent in 1997. Similarly, 26.9 percent of eighth-graders reported past year use of alcohol in 2011, compared to a recent peak rate of 46.8 percent in 1994.

Despite the declines noted in the report, use of marijuana has shown some increases in recent years and remains steady. Among 12th-graders, 36.4 percent reported past year use, and 6.6 percent reported daily use, up from 31.5 and 5 percent, respectively, five years ago.

In addition, concerns about the use of , prompted its inclusion in the survey for the first time in 2011.

More than 11 percent of 12th-graders reported past-year use.

“K2 and spice are dangerous drugs that can cause serious harm,” Gil Kerlikowske, director of National Drug Control Policy, said in a news release.  “We will continue to work with the public health and safety community to respond to this emerging threat but in the meantime, parents must take action."

There was mixed news seen in the non-medical use of prescription drugs. While abuse of the opioid painkiller Vicodin was down a bit, there were no declines for OxyContin.

In 2011, the non-medical use of the ADHD medicines Adderall and Ritalin remained about the same as last year among 12th-graders, at 6.5 and 2.6 percent, respectively.

There was, however, a significant decline in the abuse of over-the-counter cough medicine among eighth-graders, down to 2.7 percent in 2011 from 4.2 percent in 2006, when the survey first asked about its abuse. A similar decline in cough medicine abuse was seen among 12th-graders, to 5.3 percent from 6.9 percent five years ago.

The Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey began polling teenagers in 1975. More than 46,000 teens participated this year.