The Monitoring the Future survey is conducted each year by researchers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health. Youth are more likely to abuse prescription stimulants than they are to abuse cocaine or amphetamines.
The findings suggest national and international control systems have succeeded in limiting the spread of NPS in high income countries,where NPS first emerged a decade ago. Globally, over 11 million people are estimated to inject drugs, half of whom are living with Hepatitis C. Opioids continue to account for the largest burden of disease attributed to drug use. VIENNA, 24 June 2021 – Around 275 million people used drugs worldwide in the last year, while over 36 million people suffered from drug use disorders, according to the 2021 World Drug Report, released today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Explore the different types of medications prescribed for opioid overdose, withdrawal, and addiction. To address these limitations, the Monitoring the Future investigators conducted additional statistical analyses to confirm that the location differences for the survey, whether taken in-person in a classroom or at home, had little to no influence on the results.
Substance Abuse Among Youth
Teenagers in Washington are 33.36% more likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen. Teenagers in Virginia are 16.46% less likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen. Teenagers in Vermont are 75.83% more likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen. Teenagers in Utah are 28.16% less likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen.
- Teenagers in Rhode Island are 15.71% more likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen.
- The amount available for medical use has increased six-fold since 1999, from 557 million daily doses to 3,317 million by 2019, indicating that science-based pharmacological treatment is more available now than in the past.
- This year, the study surveyed students on their mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- However, importantly, other research has reported a dramatic rise in overdose deaths among teens between 2010 to 2021, which remained elevated well into 2022 according to a NIDA analysis of CDC and Census data.
Early drug abuse corelates with substance abuse problems later in life, and the most significant increases in destructive behavior appear to take place among older teens and young adults. Besides the marquee illicit drugs, several drug trends in the 2000s have caused trouble in many regions of the United States. COVID-19 has triggered innovation and adaptation in drug prevention and treatment services through more flexible models of service delivery. Many countries have introduced or expanded telemedicine services due to the pandemic, which for drug users means that healthcare workers can now offer counselling or initial assessments over the telephone and use electronic systems to prescribe controlled substances.
“Hard” Drugs Teens Use
Some of the negatives seen in teen drug abuse facts are thought to be due to the changing perceptions of some drugs. Drug abuse facts indicate fewer teens consider marijuana and ecstasy to be dangerous, while more teens see cigarettes as dangerous. However, researchers detected shifts in the drugs used, with alcohol use declining and use of nicotine products and misuse of prescription medications increasing. Adolescents who experienced pandemic-related severe stress, depression, or anxiety, or whose families experienced material hardship during the teen drug abuse pandemic, or whose parents uses substances themselves were most likely to use them too. While the completed survey from 2021 represents about 75% of the sample size of a typical year’s data collection, the results were gathered from a broad geographic and representative sample, so the data were statistically weighted to provide national numbers. This year, 11.3% of the students who took the survey identified as African American, 16.7% as Hispanic, 5.0% as Asian, 0.9% as American Indian or Alaska Native, 13.8% as multiple, and 51.2% as white.
Teenagers in Hawaii are 11.64% less likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen. Teenagers in Georgia are 19.01% less likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen. Teenagers in Florida are 5.50% less likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen. Teenagers in the District of Columbia are 11.94% more likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen. Teenagers in Delaware are 20.71% more likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen.
Mental Health Newsletter
The information we provide is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It should not be used in place of the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare providers. Especially in the case of painkillers, these drugs are often found around the house or resold after receiving a prescription from a doctor.
Even among teens that do not use drugs, it is acknowledged that they are fairly easy to come by. Indeed, almost half (45.7%) of high school seniors report that they have used marijuana at some point during their teenage years. More and more teens are using heroin (aka dope, smack, horse) as a cheap alternative to painkillers, and it’s among the most debilitating and addicting drugs to use. The 2021 World Drug Report provides a global overview of the supply and demand of opiates, cocaine, cannabis, amphetamine-type stimulants and new psychoactive substances (NPS), as well as their impact on health, taking into account the possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the latest global estimates, about 5.5 per cent of the population aged between 15 and 64 years have used drugs at least once in the past year, while 36.3 million people, or 13 per cent of the total number of persons who use drugs, suffer from drug use disorders. “Naloxone … is an incredibly safe medication that we’d love to see in school first aid kits,” she says.