A survey funded by the federal government showed that overall drug use by American teenagers declined from 2001 to 2002. According to the study's authors, such results indicate that the nation's prevention efforts are paying off -- but need to be sustained well into the future.

The Monitoring the Future Survey is conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Since 1975, the survey has tracked 12th graders' illicit drug use and attitudes towards drugs. In 1991, 8th and 10th graders were added to the study. The 2002 survey included more than 43,000 students in 394 schools across the nation.

"A decline in use was already underway for a number of substances, including cigarettes, inhalants, LSD, and others," says Lloyd Johnston, PhD, principal investigator for the study. "On the other hand, the downturn in alcohol use this year was striking, and overall illicit drug use began to decline for the first time across the board."

Examples of the 2002 survey results, released in December, include the following:

• The number of students who said that theyd smoked during their lifetime dropped between 4 and 5 percent in each grade, continuing a steady and substantial decrease that began in 1997.
• Declines in cigarette smoking occurred among all student groups included in the survey: males and females, college-bound and not, those from cities and rural areas, and the three major racial/ethnic groups -- whites, African-Americans, and Hispanics.
• Rates of alcohol use in 8th and 10th graders reached record lows in the history of the survey.
• In all three grade levels, the number of students who said that they'd used MDMA ("ecstasy") during the past month or year declined for the first time after rising rapidly in recent years.
• LSD use decreased sharply in all three grades, also dropping to record lows in survey history.
• Marijuana use in the past year decreased significantly among 10th graders, reaching its lowest rate since 1995. Use by 8th graders declined to its lowest level since 1994.
• For each grade, cocaine use remained statistically unchanged from 2001 to 2002.

The only significant increases were in crack use by 10th graders and use of sedatives by 12th graders.

Several factors help to explain the declines. A key one is the factor that researchers call "perceived risk." Simply put, use of a drug is likely to drop when more teenagers during a given year perceive the drug as dangerous and disapprove of it.

"We have found increases in the perceived risk of using a drug to be an important leading indicator of downturns in its use," says Johnston, citing the falling rates of ecstasy and tobacco use as prime examples. In the case of tobacco, supporting factors included increased prices, reductions in tobacco advertising that reaches young people, anti-smoking ads, and negative publicity about the tobacco industry.

Johnston adds that the events of September 11, 2001 may have also prompted students to reflect on their values, contributing to the overall decrease in drug use.

Jim Steinhagen, executive director of the Hazelden Center for Youth and Families in Plymouth, Minn., lauds the Monitoring the Future Survey results as evidence that prevention efforts can work. In particular, he cites the nation's progress in reducing teenagers' use of tobacco, which often functions as a gateway to other drug use.

Yet Steinhagen calls for caution on two accounts. First, not all studies of teenage drug use have yielded the same results. "Survey results can contradict each other, and the findings are sometimes difficult to compare," Steinhagen says.

Also, while results from the latest Monitoring the Future Survey are encouraging, they still represent only a short-term trend. "What we want to see is significant and positive results over the long term -- particularly as students leave the teen years and enter college," says Steinhagen. "And that will call for persistence and vigilance in our prevention efforts."

--January 27, 2003