US TX: Drug Use By Teens Drops

DRUG USE BY TEENS DROPS Study finds overall decline, but painkillers' popularity is constant WASHINGTON ( AP ) - Illicit drug use by teens continued to gradually decline overall this year, but the use of prescription painkillers remains popular among young people, according to a federally financed study released Tuesday at the White House. The survey, by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, looked at the behavior of 8th, 10th and 12th graders nationwide. The study, in its 33rd year, found that overall drug use is falling, thanks to a drop in the popularity of marijuana and methamphetamines. The drugs most responsible for this year's decline in illicit drug use are marijuana and various stimulants, including amphetamines, methamphetamine and crystal methamphetamine. At least one in every 20 high school seniors has at least tried OxyContin, a powerful narcotic drug, in the past year, the study said. The popularity of the painkiller Vicodin also remained constant. The percentage of students using Vicodin was 2.7 percent, 7.2 percent and 9.6 percent in 8th, 10th and 12th grades, respectively. Marijuana still remains the most widely used of all the illicit drugs. Cocaine was the one stimulant that did not show a decline this year. The study tracked a fairly sharp increase in the use of anabolic steroids by male teens in the late 1990s, 2000, 2001 and 2002. Since those peak years, the annual prevalence rate has dropped by more than half among the 8th and 10th grade males - to 1.1 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively - and by 40 percent among 12th-grade males to 2.3 percent this year. "The cumulative declines since recent peak levels of drug involvement in the mid-1990s are quite substantial especially among the youngest students," said Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator for the study, which was financed by the National Institute on Drug Use. It surveyed 50,000 teens. "The most encouraging statistic relates to the use of methamphetamine, which has plummeted by an impressive 64 percent since 2001," President Bush said. The study also reported an increase in the use of ecstasy. Ecstasy use among teens dropped dramatically in the early 2000s, as concern about the consequences of use grew. However, the proportion of students seeing great risk in using this drug has been in decline for the past two or three years at all three grade levels, and use has begun to increase, at least in the upper grades.

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