Illicit drug use by American teens continues gradual decline in 2007

Results of the 2007 Monitoring the Future survey where released at the White House by
President Bush on December 11, 2007. The National Institute on Drug Abusesponsors the study, and the University of
Michigan designed and conducted the study. The study has been performed annually for 32 years.

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 but has fallen to 13 percent by 2007, a drop of nearly half. The decline has been less among 10th graders, from 39 percent to 28 percent between 1997 and 2007, and least among 12th graders, a decline from the recent peak of 42 percent in 1997 to 36 percent this year.

The study breaks down trends by drug, with heroin, crack, and OxyContin all showing no decline in the 2007 survey. Concerning anabolic steroids, the study notes:

Monitoring the Future tracked a fairly sharp increase in the use of anabolic steroids by male teens in the late 1990s, with peak levels reached in 1999 among 8th-grade males, in 2000 among 10th-grade males, and in 2001 and 2002 among 12th-grade males.

Since those peak years, the annual prevalence rate has dropped by more than half among the 8th and 10th grader males (to 1.1 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively), and by 40 percent among 12th-grade males (to 2.3 percent annual prevalence in 2007).

Also covered where alcohol and tobacco usage, usage of both having decreased in the 2007 study.

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