Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Teenagers' Smoking, Drug Abuse And Drinking At Lowest Levels Seen In Decades
Cigarette smoking has dropped so sharply among American teenagers that vaping and marijuana use are now more common, according to a national survey of adolescent drug use released Thursday. The report, sponsored by the federal government’s National Institute on Drug Abuse and administered by the University of Michigan, found that 22.9 percent of high school seniors said they had used marijuana within the previous 30 days and 16.6 percent had used a vaping device. Only 9.7 percent had smoked cigarettes. (Hoffman, 12/14)
About 1 in 3 middle and high school students surveyed in 2017 said they had used some kind of illicit drug sometime in their life. Two decades ago, that figure was 43%. Likewise, 17% of students surveyed in 2017 said they smoked cigarettes at least once, and 26% said they had been drunk. In the 1990s, those figures reached highs of 58% and 46%, respectively. “The rates of drug use among teenagers in our country are the lowest they’ve ever been for some drugs,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. (Kaplan, 12/13)
