From a story today by the Associated Press:
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 proportion of 8th graders reporting use of an illicit drug at least once in the 12 months prior to the survey was 24 percent in 1996. It now has fallen to 13 percent – a drop of nearly half.
When I was the age of the folks included in this study, we were in the grips of the “Just Say No” campaign by Nancy Reagan, and the invention of the Office of National Drug Control Policy — the so-called “drug czar.”
Meanwhile, we’ve seen a host of celebrities die from drug use and numerous anti-drug campaigns. Are they working? Are kids getting smarter about this stuff?
And while all the news in this study wasn’t rosy (misuse of certain prescription painkillers is up), to what do you ascribe the stats cited in this story?
Kurt has been an editor at the Post-Dispatch since August 2002, working on both STLtoday and the newspaper. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
Note: my failure to be a good grammarian in post #16 was intentional. Is anyone confused about what I said?
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Look at your TV. Drug commericials dominates over all others combined.
If those commercials weren’t paying off for the Pharmacutical companies the wouldn’t be running.
Kids are getting lazy and smart. They can space out on on Mom’s and dad’s drugs and then sit at che comper and post on “My Space” The is no need for a kid burn off calories by having to walk down to a s street corner and use their allowane to buy drugs when thay are in ther parent(s) medicine cabinet for FREEe
Now, for the aub-topic, grammarians. They are cheap, you can get a good one for $30-40,000 a year as an independant contractor. He/she pays their own taxes, social security, etc. People who have good ideas are worth MUCH MORE. Kurt is paid for having good ideas a lot more than he is being paid to be a grammarian.
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Maybe the masking agents are better…I consider Myspace a drug so really the study is inconclusive.
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I agree that it really hasn’t changed. I also echo the sentiment that alcohol is (still) the drug of choice. What amazes me are the parents who provide alcohol so their kids can have a party…and the parents confiscate the car keys of the parties so “no one drives drunk”.
ACK! I was the most unpopular parent among my kid’s friends because I wouldn’t do it.
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We see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. The culture of “It’s Friday night; let’s get high” is alive and well and it starts in Junior High (no pun intended). Any kind of alcohol or drugs a kid wants are readily available, especially the prescription drugs mom & dad leave laying around the medicine cabinet. Kids can get high pretty much whenever they want, and the pressure to do so begins early. And if somehow they make it through high school without totally messing up their lives, college peer pressure moves from a Friday-night party culture to an every night of the week party. Kids can and are using drugs, and articles like the one posted give too much comfort to the parents of Johnny-Can-Do-No-Wrong. Constant vigilance is required, and an underlying atmosphere at home of love, acceptance and self-esteem. If our kids have low self-esteem and feel unloved, they will latch onto drugs the minute they can to fill that gap in their lives, and no amount of vigilance will stop them. Trust a parent who found out the hard way.
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Kids are too busy playing video games and updating their MySpace pages to go out and do drugs. They have gotten that lazy…
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As always, you have to ask who is sponsoring the “study” and how is it furthering their agendas. I don’t think drug use is down one bit, especially if you include alcohol, which they most likely didn’t. Same old, same old…four decades later. I can see how kids would want to use more since the world is going to hell, and it dropped the handbasket and is now limping towatds the fires. Party ON! Mom and dad will even party with you now.
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I agree, kids are just using different drugs. And more alcohol. The alcohol drug pushers have been targeting kids with more and more flavored concoctions. More parents accept alcohol use by underage kids. They defend their little darlings more than ever before. No matter what the bad behavior is. Cannabis prices are through the roof. Parents are using so much more prescription drugs that they don’t even notice when the kids swipe a handful. America is a sick society as far as drugs go. It was a step in the right direction to change the cocaine laws to put crack and powdered coke on a more level playing field. The history of drug prohibition is based on racism and economic prejudices. And these surveys that are the basis of such stories have always been off. There is a large industry that profits from street drug bans. Some are Georgie’s buds. Include alcohol as the drug and the story of today would change to a more realistic slant. Which is GREATER USE ACROSS THE BOARD. My god, have you not tried to talk to a kid after a weekend? Much less try to work with them in a business environment. Huh what? Duh? Who? Service?
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Prescription drug abuse among teenagers is increasing because parents view Rush limbaugh as a role model.
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Perhaps the illicit drug use is down because obtaining them is no longer child’s play (pun intended). Remember, the is a survey of middle schoolers and high schoolers, perhaps the underground market is less willing to do business with children than they have been in the past. But, as the survey shows, where there is a will there is a way. Rather than Julio down by the school yard (apologies to Simon and Garfunkel) its the medicine cabinet in the parents bath room.
Or I could be completely off base, and the real reason is Rob Smyth has cornered the market, leaving none for the teenagers!
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Gah! Another victim of Skitt’s Law. Good call on the comma splice and the poor word choice — I sit corrected.
Back to your regularly scheduled topic…
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Thank you, Grammar Nazi. Forgive the brain cramp. It’s corrected. Now, let’s get back on topic.
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And also, cubiclewarrior, wouldn’t “fewer” be more appropriate than “less”?
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#3, Cubiclewarrior: …..people who live in glass houses…..probably shouldn’t throw stones!!!!
In the first sentence of your comment, try using a semicolon (;) and drop the comma (,) between main clauses.
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Kurt — “to what do you explain”? Huh? Did you mean “to what do you ascribe”?
# End Grammar Nazi Block
As for the actual question, kids aren’t using less drugs, they’re just using prescription drugs more. Maybe I’m just a rotten person who runs with rotten people, but anecdotal evidence – reliable as it always is – has never borne out the results of these surveys.
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Drug use among teens is far from down. The drugs of choice are just different. They went from marijuana, alcohol. To, yep imagine that drugs that “THEY” the GOVT. make real residual income off of. Drugs such as PROZAK, RITALIN, XANAX ect… Most of these drugs are used to “TREAT” not cure, a disease/condition of ADD (attention deficit disorder.) So NO drug use is not down among teens, its just switched to using PHARMACEUTICALS’ which now days are much easier to come by than the before mentioned MARIJUANA, ALCOHOL.
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Costs?? Nah, prices for illicits drugs seem stable or, adjusted for inflation, even down. Embarrassment from watching the parents and not wishing to do what they did?? Availability of alcohol and cigs for those who need an addictive-over-time habit? Hard to say.
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