Teen Alcohol And Drug Use Has Declined In The US

Teen alcohol and drug use rate shows a big decline in 2016.

Teenagers from the US are quitting their bad habits. In the last 40 years, this is the first time the teen alcohol and drug use rate has declined. Until now, every year this rate was alarmingly increasing. Apparently, this new generation of American teens decided to give up bad habits and live a healthier life.

Teen alcohol and drug use rate shows a big decline in 2016. A survey which started in 1975 showed that in the last 40 years teenagers tended to smoke and drink a lot. This survey showed that in 1991 more than 11% of teens smoked more than a half of pack a day. In 2016, less than 2% mentioned that they smoke half a pack a day.

Even the use of electronic cigarettes has declined since last year with more than 3%. This is great news for the health of American teenagers. The best results were recorded in the case of alcohol consumption. Researchers found an almost 20% decrease in the rate of alcohol use in the case of 12 graders. In 2001 more than 53% mentioned that they got drunk at least once. This year only 37% said that.

Specialists mentioned that social media might be responsible for the decrease of teen alcohol and drug use. They said that video games could have helped too. This is because children and young adults are too busy chatting online or playing games to develop these bad habits like using drugs, smoking or drinking.

There are some things that never change. Marijuana use among high school seniors is the same as usual. More than 22% of students mentioned that they smoked pot in the last month and more than 5% mentioned that they use this drug daily. These numbers are the same as last year’s numbers.

When it comes to 8th-graders the number changed, declining with more than 1%. Only 5.4% of 8th-graders said that they used marijuana in the last month. In order to complete this survey more than 45,000 12th, 8th, and 10th graders were interviewed. These teenagers were from both private and public schools all over the US.

All in all the survey showed that teen alcohol and drug use has declined in 2016 which is good news for American teenagers. The survey also showed that this is the first time this happens in over 40 years.

What is your opinion about the fact that fewer teens are smoking and drinking?

Image source: Wikipedia

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Nancy Young

When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.