This article was corrected | View correction
As marijuana use for medical or recreational purposes is debated at state and municipal levels across the country, use of the drugs among teens continues to climb, according to an annual survey funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The 2010 Monitoring the Future Survey, a nationally representative survey of about 45 000 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students at public and private schools, provides a snapshot of substance use and attitudes toward this behavior among teens. While marijuana use continued to rise, the survey found that use of other illicit drugs and abuse of prescription drugs had leveled off. Moreover, alcohol use continued to decrease.
Marijuana use increased across all 3 grades, continuing a 3-year trend, with 6.1% of 12th graders reporting daily or near-daily use in the past 30 days compared with 5.2% in 2009; 3.3% of 10th graders vs 2.8% in 2009; and 1.2% of 8th graders vs 1.0% in 2009. Moreover, 1 in 16 high school seniors reported daily or near-daily use of marijuana in 2010. The study's authors conclude that the increases in use may be driven by teens’ attitudes toward the drug because fewer teens report seeing much danger in use—even regular use—and fewer teens report disapproval of use.
Grahic Jump Location
“Mixed messages about drug legalization, particularly marijuana, may be to blame,” said Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, in a statement.
After declining for the last several years, the rates of reported use of any illicit drug other than marijuana leveled off in 2010, with 7% of 8th graders, 12% of 10th graders, and 17% of 12th graders reporting use in the past year. Ecstasy use in particular rose in 2010, with 2.4% of 8th graders reporting past year use compared with 1.3% in 2009.
“There may well be a generational forgetting of the dangers of ecstasy as newer cohorts of youth enter adolescence, said Lloyd Johnston, principal investigator of the study and a researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Prescription drug abuse remained high with OxyContin (oxycodone) use among high school seniors remaining at about 5%, while Vicodin (hydrocodone bitartrate plus acetaminophen) use among seniors decreased from 9.7% in 2009 to 8% in 2010.
Alcohol use among teens continues to decline, with alcohol use in the past 30 days among high school seniors reaching about 40%, the lowest rate in the survey's 35-year history.
This article was corrected for errors on June 7, 2011.
Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature
Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal
Instructions
Comments are moderated and will appear on the site at the discretion of the Journal of American Medical Association editors. Comments should not exceed 500 words of text and 10 references.
Do not submit personal medical questions or information that could identify a specific patient, questions about a particular case, or general inquiries to an author. Only content that has not been published, posted, or submitted elsewhere should be submitted. By submitting this Comment, you and any coauthors transfer copyright to the journal if your Comment is posted.
* = Required Field
Disclosure of Any Conflicts of Interest* Indicate all relevant conflicts of interest of each author below, including all relevant financial interests, activities, and relationships within the past 3 years including, but not limited to, employment, affiliation, grants or funding, consultancies, honoraria or payment, speakers’ bureaus, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, royalties, donation of medical equipment, or patents planned, pending, or issued. If all authors have none, check "No potential conflicts or relevant financial interests" in the box below. Please also indicate any funding received in support of this work. The information will be posted with your response.
Register and get free email Table of Contents alerts, saved searches, PowerPoint downloads, CME quizzes, and more
Subscribe for full-text access to content from 1998 forward and a host of useful features
Activate your current subscription (AMA members and current subscribers)
Some tools below are only available to our subscribers or users with an online account.
Download citation file:
Customize your page view by dragging & repositioning the boxes below.
and access these and other features:
Register Now
Enter your username and email address. We'll send you a reminder to the email address on record.
Athens and Shibboleth are access management services that provide single sign-on to protected resources. They replace the multiple user names and passwords necessary to access subscription-based content with a single user name and password that can be entered once per session. It operates independently of a user's location or IP address. If your institution uses Athens or Shibboleth authentication, please contact your site administrator to receive your user name and password.