NCJ Number
219001
Date Published
August 2006
Length
715 pages
Annotation
Results are presented from the Monitoring the Future study on the trends in illicit drug use and related attitudes and beliefs among American high school students.
Abstract
Highlights of summary findings from Volume I of Monitoring the Future study, specific for secondary school students include: (1) more than 1 in every 29 12th graders (3.5 percent) has tried crack. In the young adult sample, 1 in 16 (6.4 percent) has tried crack by age 29-30; (3) more than 1 in every 20, 12th graders (5.0 percent) in 2005 smokes marijuana daily, and this rate has shown relatively little decline so far; (4) among those same 12th graders in 2005, 1 in every 7 (15 percent) has been a daily marijuana smoker at some time for at least a month; and (5) nearly 3 in 10 12th graders (27 percent) consumed 5 or more drinks in a row at least once in the 2 weeks prior to the survey. Despite the substantial improvement in this country's drug situation in the 1980s and the early 1990s, and then some further improvement beginning in the late 1990s, American secondary school students and young adults show a level of involvement with illicit drugs that is among the highest in the world's industrialized nations. Even by longer-term historical standards in this country, these rates remain extremely high, though in general they are not as high as in the peak years of the epidemic in the late 1970s. The Monitoring the Future study consists of two major components: the ongoing surveys of American secondary school students conducted in schools and the ongoing panel studies of high school graduates from the last 29 graduating classes conducted by mail. This volume, presents findings of secondary students in grades 8, 10, and 12 on substance use and related behaviors. Tables, figures, appendixes, and index