In Nationwide Survey, More Students Use Marijuana, Fewer Use Other Drugs
For the 16th year in a row, NIDA’s annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey has documented a decline in the percentage of American students in grades 8, 10, and 12 who report having ever used alcohol. The percentage of survey respondents who reported having ever smoked cigarettes also dropped, for the 17th straight year, bringing lifetime smoking prevalence among these teens to less than half of the peak reported in the mid-1990s (see Figure 1). However, the portion of students reporting that they had used an illegal drug during their lifetime increased by 1.7 percentage points, from 34.1