e-cigarettes usage is high among teens.
A new survey conducted by 2016 Monitoring the Future has found that today’s teens are less addicted to drugs than their predecessors.
According to the survey, the use of illegal substances like marijuana, alcohol and tobacco, and other drugs that deliver intoxication has been continuing to decrease among teens.
The survey has been conducted since 1975 among students of 10th and 12th standard. This years survey took response from 45,473 students from over 372 public and private schools. The survey has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The survey found that the use of banned drugs have once again continued to decline among eight grades and it also found that the use of all illegal drugs other than marijuana has decreased among all three graders.
“This is very, very good news,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are seeing some of the lowest rates of drug use we’ve ever encountered in our survey, and that is for cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, inhalants.”
Samuel Ball, president and CEO of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University was quoted by cbslocal.com saying “These decreasing use trends have been found in national surveys over the past 10 years.”
Volkow also expresses her happiness for the new figures that says the rate of alcohol and nicotine are in the lowest ever and when it comes to nicotine the numbers are far more better as there has been a fourfold decrease over the period of 10 or 15 years.
Going by the figures of 1991, one in 10 high school students smoked more than half a pack if not more every day but the new generation teens have more awareness about the risks as the numbers have dropped to 1.8%.
Though she’s generally pleased, Volkow remains concerned about marijuana as rates of marijuana use in the past year among 10th-graders remained same compared with 2015. Among seniors, rates also remained relatively unchanged, the survey found.
More than 22% of high school seniors reported past-month marijuana use, and 6% reported daily use for this year.
Adding to this there is a new concern that is hampering the happiness of Volkow – e-cigarettes. According to the survey, use of e-cigarettes have raised exponentially among teens.
E-cigarettes are far more dangerous as they deliver drug directly into the brain very, very rapidly and at very high concentration.