America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2009
Illicit Drug Use
Drug use by adolescents can have immediate as well as long-term health and social consequences. Cocaine use is linked with health problems that range from eating disorders to disability to death from heart attacks and strokes.94 Marijuana use poses both health and cognitive risks, particularly for damage to pulmonary functions as a result of chronic use.95,96 Hallucinogens can affect brain chemistry and result in problems with memory and learning new information.97 As is the case with alcohol use and smoking, illicit drug use is a risk-taking behavior that has potentially serious negative consequences.
Indicator BEH3: Percentage of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students who reported using illicit drugs in the past 30 days by grade, 1980–2008
NOTE: Use of "any illicit drug" includes any use of marijuana, LSD, other hallucinogens, crack, other cocaine, or heroin, or any use of other narcotics, amphetamines, barbiturates, or tranquilizers not under a doctor's orders. For 8th- and 10th-graders, the use of other narcotics and barbiturates has been excluded because these younger respondents appear to overreport use (perhaps because they include the use of nonprescription drugs in their responses).
SOURCE: National Institute on Drug Abuse, Monitoring the Future Survey.
- Illicit drug use in the past 30 days was unchanged from 2007 to 2008. Eight percent of 8th-grade students, 16 percent of 10th-grade students, and 22 percent of 12th-grade students reported use in the past 30 days in 2008.
- Eight percent of male and 7 percent of female 8th-grade students reported using illicit drugs in the past 30 days. Among 10th-grade students, the percentages were 17 percent for males and 14 percent for females. Among 12th-grade students, the percentages were 25 percent for males and 19 percent for females.
- Reports of illicit drug use in the past 30 days have declined from the most recent peaks of 15 percent for 8th-grade students and 23 percent for 10th-grade students in 1996, and 26 percent for 12th-grade students in 1997.
94 National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2006). NIDA InfoFacts: Crack and cocaine. Available at http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/cocaine.html.
95 National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2004). Marijuana: Facts parents need to know (NIH Publication No. 04-4036). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
96 Pope Jr., H.G., and Yurgelun-Todd, D. (1996). The residual cognitive effects of heavy marijuana use in college students. Journal of the American Medical Association, 275 (7).
97 National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2001). Research Report Series: Hallucinogens and dissociative drugs (NIH Publication No. 01-4209). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.