Monitoring The Future Survey: Youth Trends
By Dr.Ali
Fourkan
This year's Monitoring the Future
(MTF) survey of drug use and attitudes among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders in
hundreds of schools across the country continues to report promising trends,
with past-year use of illicit drugs other than marijuana holding steady
at the lowest levels in over two decades–5.8 percent among 8th graders, 9.4
percent among 10th graders, and 13.3 percent among 12th graders. This is down
from peak rates of 13.1 percent for 8th graders in 1996, 18.4 percent for 10th
graders in 1996, and 21.6 percent for 12th graders in 2001.
Last year, use of many substances reached the lowest levels
since the survey's inception (or since the survey began asking about them) and
held steady in 2017, or in some cases, dropped even more. Substances at
historic low levels of use include alcohol and cigarettes, heroin, prescription
opioids, MDMA (Ecstasy or Molly), methamphetamine, amphetamines, and sedatives.
Other illicit drugs showed five-year declines, such as synthetic marijuana,
hallucinogens other than LSD, and over-the-counter cough and cold medications.
Five-year trends, however, did reveal an increase in LSD use among high school
seniors, although use still remains lower compared to its peak in 1996.
The survey also found a general decline in perceived risk of
harm from using a number of substances and declining disapproval of people who
use them. For example, the percentage of 8th graders who think that occasional
use of synthetic marijuana or over-the-counter cough and cold medications is
less than it was last year and in prior years. Among 10th graders, there was a
decrease in the proportion of students who perceive a risk of harm when trying
inhalants, powder cocaine, or over-the-counter cough and cold medications once
or twice. High school seniors reported reduced perception of harm in occasional
cocaine, heroin, and steroid use, and reduced disapproval of trying LSD.
Opioids
Despite the continued rise in opioid and overdose deaths and
high levels of opioid misuse among adults, lifetime, past-year, and past-month
misuse of prescription opioids (narcotics other than heroin) dropped
significantly over the last five years in 12th graders (the only grade surveyed
in this category). Vicodin use notably dropped by 51 percent in 8th graders, 67
percent in 10th graders and 74 percent in 12th graders. Interestingly, teens
also think these drugs are not as easy to get as they used to be. Only 35.8
percent of 12th graders said they were easily available in the 2017 survey,
compared to more than 54 percent in 2010.
Marijuana
Past-year marijuana use declined
among 10th graders and remains unchanged among 8th and 12th graders compared to
five years ago, despite the changing state marijuana laws. Past-year use of marijuana reached its lowest levels
in more than two decades among 8th and 10th graders in 2016; the one slight
increase in 2017 was past-month use among 10th graders, which returned to
2014-2015 levels after a decrease in 2016. Daily use of marijuana has declined
among 8th graders over the past five years to 0.7 percent. Among 12th graders,
6 percent continue to report daily use, which corresponds to about 1 in 16 high
school seniors. Among all grades, perceptions of harm and disapproval around
marijuana use continue to decrease, with a smaller percentage 8th and 10th
graders thinking that regular marijuana use is harmful, and fewer 10th and 12th
graders disapproving of regular marijuana use. While only 29.0 percent of 12th
graders report that regular marijuana use poses a great risk (half of what it
was 20 years ago), disapproval among 12th graders remains somewhat high, with
64.7 percent reporting they disapprove of adults smoking marijuana regularly.
This year, daily marijuana use
exceeds daily cigarette use among 8th (0.8 vs. 0.6 percent), 10th (2.9 vs. 2.2
percent) and 12th (5.9 vs. 4.2 percent) graders. This is the first year in which daily marijuana use
appeared to outpace daily cigarette use among 8th graders-this flip occurred in
10th graders in 2014 and in 12th graders in 2015, reflecting a steep decline in
daily cigarette use and fairly stable daily marijuana use.
Alcohol
Alcohol use and binge drinking
continued to show a significant five-year decline among all grades. Past month use of alcohol was reported by 8.0 percent,
19.7 percent, and 33.2 percent of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, respectively,
compared to 11.0 percent, 27.6 percent, and 41.5 percent in 2012. Daily alcohol
use and binge drinking (defined as consuming five or more drinks sometime in
the past two weeks) also decreased significantly among all grades between 2012
and 2017. Unlike previous years, however, there were not significant declines
in alcohol use between 2016 and 2017. Also, the perception of risk of binge
drinking significantly decreased in 10th graders in 2017.
The percentage of high school teens
who reported ever using alcohol dropped by as much as 60 percent compared to
peak years. This year's survey found that
23.1 percent of 8th graders reported ever trying alcohol, which is a 60 percent
drop from the peak of 55.8 percent in 1994. Among 10th graders, lifetime use
fell by 40 percent from 72.0 percent in 1997 to 42.2 percent in 2017. Among
12th graders, there was a significant 25 percent drop in lifetime alcohol use
from 81.7 percent in 1997 to the current 61.5 percent.
Nicotine and Tobacco
Use of traditional cigarettes has
continued to decline to the lowest levels in the survey's history. Significant five-year declines-by more than half for
daily use and for use of one half pack or more per day-were reported by all
grades. Daily cigarette use was reported by 0.6 percent of 8th graders, 2.2
percent of 10th graders, and 4.2 percent of 12th graders in 2017. This was down
from peaks of 10.4 percent and 18.3 percent among 8th and 10th graders in 1996
and a peak of 24.6 percent of 12th graders in 1997.
Use of other tobacco products
including hookah and smokeless tobacco declined among high school seniors.Among 12th graders, tobacco use with a hookah fell from 13.0
percent to 10.1 percent in the last year; past-year hookah rates have declined
by 45 percent in the past five years. Lifetime and past-month use of smokeless
tobacco declined in 12th graders from 2016 to 2017 and showed a five-year
decline in all grades.
For the first time in 2017, the MTF
survey asked high school students about vaping specific substances ever, in the
past year, and in the past month. Past-year
vaping was reported by 13.3 percent of 8th graders, 23.9 percent of 10th
graders, and 27.8 percent of 12th graders. Vaping was the third most common
form of substance use in high school seniors and 10th graders (after alcohol
and marijuana) and the second most common among 8th graders (after alcohol).
Students were also asked what substances they had consumed
via vaping-nicotine, marijuana, or "just flavoring." Past-year vaping
of flavoring alone was most common (reported by 11.8 percent of 8th graders,
19.3 percent of 10th graders, and 20.6 percent of 12th graders), followed by
vaping nicotine (7.5 percent, 15.8 percent, and 18.8 percent) and marijuana
(3.0 percent, 8.1 percent, and 9.5 percent).
The new survey data regarding vaping also reveal a
difference in perception of harm when nicotine is specifically mentioned. While
20.3 percent of 8th graders reported thinking it is harmful to regularly use
e-cigarettes, 38.2 percent reported thinking it is harmful to regularly vape an
e-liquid containing nicotine. Similar differences were also seen in 10th
graders (19.4 reported thinking it is harmful to use e-cigarettes regularly vs.
33.3 perceiving harm in regularly vaping a liquid that contains nicotine) and
12th graders (16.1 vs. 27.0 percent).
Synthetic Drugs
Past-year use of synthetic cannabinoids (K2/herbal incense,
sometimes called "fake weed" or "synthetic marijuana") has
dropped significantly in the six years since the survey began tracking use of
these substances. Since 2011, reported use among 12th graders has dropped from
11.4 percent to 3.7 percent. Use has also fallen from 4.4 percent to 2.0 percent
among 8th graders and from 8.8 percent to 2.7 percent among 10th graders since
2012. In recent years, use of another synthetic drug called "bath
salts" (technically, synthetic cathinones) among youth has become a
concern. The MTF survey began tracking past-year synthetic cathinone use in
2012, and since then, there has been a decrease among 12th graders from 1.3
percent to 0.6 percent in 2017. Use among 10th graders has declined to 0.4
percent from a peak of 0.9 percent in 2013.
The writer Teacher and
Coulminist
8801611579267
Dr.fourkanali@gmail.com
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