New Study Confirms Teen Drug Use Trends

A new study, released today by The Partnership at Drugfree.org and the MetLife Foundation, found a number of interesting trends in teen drug use. Some of them echo the findings of Monitoring the Future from the past year – for example, that marijuana use in teens has been trending up in the past 3 years. Rising ecstasy use was also reported. As you can see in our teen drug use infographic, marijuana use has been rising for a few years, while cigarette use is set on a downward path.

Teen marijuana use appears to be increasing, while cigarette use is continuing to decline.

(data for image taken from Monitoring the Future)

An area The Partnership/MetLife study took a particularly hard look at was underage drinking.  Drinking starts young – 62% of teens that report drinking said they had their first full drink by the age of 15.  25% of those teens had their first drink at the age of 12 or younger.

The study found that about a third of parents were unsure as to how they could prevent their teen from drinking, responding that there was very little a parent could do to stop it.  Meanwhile, a significant number of teens said that used alcohol to deal with stress in some way.  32% said they drank to forget their problems; 24% to deal with problems at home; 20% to deal with school-related pressures.  So, it would appear the idea that incidental teen alcohol use is related to parties and not other issues of self-confidence and social pressure has been debunked.

The % of teens prone to alcohol abuse is alarming, and suggests a need for better parent-teen communication on the issue.  Another issue parents and schools need to better address is teen prescription drug abuse.  The study reports that 1 in 4 teens have taken a prescription drug not prescribed to them at least once in their lives; 23% used a prescription painkiller not prescribed to them by a doctor.  11% of teens have abused cough medicine for its psychoactive effects.

Check out the study here and let us know what you think.  How should schools and parents shift their policies to adapt to these new trends?

New Infographic from Home Health Testing: Teenage Drug Trends 2011

We’ve been working hard for the last month and a half on this project, and we are finally ready to reveal our first infographic! Take a look – Drug Use in Today’s Classroom! Do you see anything that surprises you?

Teen Drug Use infographic
By: HomeHealthTesting.com

You can also check out the infographic in a larger size (both sizes are embeddable) over here at our Teen Drug Use infographic page.

The data was compiled from the 2010 Monitoring the Future study, which has examined trends in high schools since 1975.  The study follows participants from 8th grade through young adulthood.  We tried to present the statistics we saw as the most important, along with the facts singled out by Monitoring the Future, in this infographic.  We are very grateful to Principal Investigator Lloyd D. Johnston, Ph.D. for giving us permission to use the data and for Monitoring the Future for providing such excellent data every year.

Let us know what you think about the graphic!  What surprised you and what didn’t?  Do you have any questions or want to know the source for each fact?  Need to know how to embed the graphic on your site?  Leave a comment below or email us at cs at homehealthtesting.com and we’ll get back to you ASAP!