By Karen KaplanOriginal Source: latimes.com
Drinking, smoking and drug abuse are on the decline among American teenagers, in some cases falling to the lowest levels seen in decades, according to the latest results from an annual nationwide survey.
About 1 in 3 middle and high school students surveyed in 2017 said they had used some kind of illicit drug sometime in their life. Two decades ago, that figure was 43%.
Likewise, 17% of students surveyed in 2017 said they smoked cigarettes at least once, and 26% said they had been drunk. In the 1990s, those figures reached highs of 58% and 46%, respectively.
“The rates of drug use among teenagers in our country are the lowest they’ve ever been for some drugs,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
A notable exception to this trend is marijuana use. The proportion of teens who said...click here to continue reading
