WASHINGTON — Illicit drug use by teens continued to gradually decline overall this year, but the use of prescription painkillers remains popular among young people, according to a federally financed study released Tuesday.
The survey, by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, looked at the behavior of eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders nationwide. The 33rd annual study found that overall drug use is falling, thanks to a drop in the popularity of marijuana and methamphetamine. But it also found that teen use of other drugs, such as cocaine, is holding steady, and narcotics such as OxyContin and Vicodin remain in vogue.
Overall, the proportion of eighth-graders reporting use of an illicit drug at least once in the 12 months before the survey was 24 percent in 1996. It now has fallen to 13 percent — a drop of nearly half.
Among 10th-graders, the rates dropped from 39 percent to 28 percent between 1997 and 2007. Among 12th-graders, rates declined from a peak of 42 percent in 1997 to 36 percent this year.
“The cumulative declines since recent peak levels of drug involvement in the mid-1990s are quite substantial especially among the youngest students,” said Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator for the study, which was financed by the National Institute on Drug Use. It surveyed 50,000 teens.
