In the past year, nearly 1 in 3 high school seniors used some kind of electronic vaping device filled with marijuana, nicotine, or just flavoring, according to the 2017 Monitoring the Future survey, released today by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
“Vaping is an area of concern,” NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow, MD, said during a press briefing.
“Weare especially concerned because the survey shows that some of the teens using these devices are first-time nicotine users,” Dr Volkow noted in a statement. “Recent research suggests that some of them could move on to regular cigarette smoking, so it is critical that we intervene with evidence-based efforts to prevent youth from using these products.”
A total of 43,703 students in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades from 360 public and private schools participated in the 2017 Monitoring the Future survey. The survey is supported by NIDA and has been conducted annually since 1975 by researchers at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor.
According to the survey, which was conducted early in 2017, 27.8% of high school seniors reported vaping during the previous year. When asked what they thought was in the mist that they inhaled the last time they vaped, 51.8% of seniors said only flavoring, 32.8% said nicotine, and 11.1% said marijuana or hash oil. When asked specifically what they vaped in the past month, more than 1 in 10 (11.0%) said nicotine; about 1 in 20 (4.9%) said marijuana.
The “very good news from the survey,” said Dr Volkow, “is that basically for most of the drugs, both legal and illegal, we are seeing some of the lowest numbers that we have been recording for many years. Overall, we are very excited about these findings…because the adolescent brain is rapidly developing, and the use of drugs in teenagers is actually a predictor of adverse outcomes, including addiction.”
Teen Opioid Use at Historic Lows
The survey shows that teens are misusing opioid pain medications less often than a decade ago and that for some common pain medications, rates are at historic lows. For example, past-year abuse of the hydrocodone product Vicodin (Abbott) among high school seniors dipped to its lowest point since the survey began measuring it in 2002. Currently, that rate is just 2%. By comparison, the rate last year was 2.9%, reflecting a long-term decline from a peak of 10.5% in 2003.
“Similarly, Oxycontin [Purdue Pharma] has also seen significant reductions, and when it comes to heroin, less than 0.5% of teenagers are using heroin,” Dr Volkow said. Teens also reported that these pain medications are harder to get than they used to be. Only 35.8% of 12th graders said they were easily available in the 2017 survey, compared to more than 54% in 2010.
“The decline in both the misuse and perceived availability of opioid medications may reflect recent public health initiatives to discourage opioid misuse to address this crisis,” Dr Volkow said. “However, with each new class of teens entering the challenging years of middle and high school, we must remain vigilant in our prevention efforts targeting young people, the adults who nurture and influence them, and the healthcare providers who treat them.”
Dramatic Decline in Cigarette Use
The latest survey also confirms the recent trend that marijuana has become more popular than cigarette smoking among teens, representing a dramatic flip in use between these two drugs since the Monitoring the Future survey began.
“Perhaps the most dramatic decreases have been observed in the pattern of smoking cigarettes in teenagers. Here we are seeing the lowest rates ever recorded by the survey. For example, daily tobacco smoking by high school seniors is at a low of 4.6%, which is significantly lower than daily use of marijuana,” Dr Volkow told the briefing.
“The cigarette story, long term, is a very exciting one,” added Lloyd Johnston, PhD, from the University of Michigan. “Based on the three grades combined, the percent of kids who say they have smoked a cigarette is down by over 70% since the mid-90s, when there was a peak in cigarette smoking.” Rates of smokeless tobacco are also down, he said.
“Particularly worrisome,” said Dr Volkow, “is the regular patterns of marijuana use,” with 5.9% of high school seniors reporting daily marijuana use. “This pattern of use has been shown to be associated with impairment in educational achievement.” When responses from all three grades are combined, the 2017 data indicate that past-year marijuana use is up slightly, to 23.9%, from 22.6% in 2016, but is similar to 2015 rates (23.7%).
The 2017 survey also shows that significantly fewer teens now disapprove of regular marijuana use ― 64.7% of 12th graders voiced disapproval, down from 68.5% last year. High school seniors from states where medical marijuana laws have been passed are more likely to have vaped marijuana and to have consumed marijuana edibles than their peers from states without these laws; 16.7% of 12th graders in states with medical marijuana laws said they consumed marijuana edibles, compared to 8.3% in states without these laws.
“With synthetic cannabinoids, the levels are much, much lower than we have seen when we started tracing them,” Dr Volkow reported.
Levels of inhalant use, which is typically more popular among younger students, is back up to 2015 levels among 8th graders, at 4.7%, compared with 3.8% in 2016. However, rates are still low and are well below sthe peak rate of 12.8% seen in 1995.
After years of steady decline in binge drinking rates among teens, rates appear to have leveled off, although rates are still down significantly from peak years. For example, among high school seniors, 16.6% reported binge drinking in 2017, down from a peak of 31.5% in 1998. For 10th graders, the binge drinking rates were 9.8% in 2017, down from a peak of 24.1% in 2000.
Although binge drinking among 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students remains well below the levels seen 10 years ago, the downward trend appears to have “slowed somewhat in recent years. This may signal a need for more emphasis on alcohol prevention strategies in this age group,” George F. Koob, PhD, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said in the release.
More information on the 2017 Monitoring the Future survey is available online.
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