Teen drug and alcohol use drops in 2016
Today’s teens are way better behaved than you were
CHRISTOPHER INGRAHAM, THE WASHINGTON POST
Teen drug and alcohol use has fallen to levels not seen since the height of the drug war in the 1990s, according to new federal survey data.
The Monitoring the Future survey of about 50,000 high school students found that “considerably fewer teens reported using any illicit drug other than marijuana in the prior 12 months – 5% 10% and 14% in grades 8, 10 and 12, respectively- than at any time since 1991.”
Teen alcohol and cigarette use are at historic lows too. Among all students surveyed in 2016, just over 36% had drank alcohol in the previous year. That’s down by nearly half from the high in 1991, when 67% of high school students had consumed alcohol.
Similarly, in 1991, 63% of 12th-graders had smoked cigarettes at some point in their lifetimes. As of this year, that number’s fallen to 28%
