Teen drug use is down: Better parenting, or more smartphones?
Teen drug use is down: Better parenting, or more smartphones? - That’s the news from the Monitoring the Future study, which has been surveying more than 40,000 eighth, 10th and 12th graders about their drug use for more than four decades. While marijuana use has been steady, use of all other illicit drugs (including prescription amphetamines or narcotics being used outside of medical supervision) is down. In 1996, 13% of eighth graders reported using illicit drugs (besides marijuana) in the previous year; in 2016, it was 5%. For 10th graders the number went from 18% to 10%, and for 12th graders it went from 20% to 14%. The marijuana news isn’t all bad, either; over the same 20 years, use by eighth graders went from 18% to 9%, and by 10th graders from 34% to 24%. It’s in 12th graders that it hasn’t budged; it was 35% in 1996 and 36% in 2016.