Smoking down among US teens

The use of alcohol, marijuana, prescription medications and illicit substances declined among US teens again in 2016, continuing a long-term trend, according to a story by Dan Whitcomb for Reuters, citing the results of a survey released on Tuesday by the National Institutes of Health.

The annual survey is part of a series called Monitoring the Future, which has tracked drug, alcohol and tobacco use among teens since 1975.

It is sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and this year was conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor who surveyed 45,473 students from 372 public and private schools.

It found that marijuana and electronic cigarettes were more popular among teens than were regular tobacco, and that there had been a large drop in the use of tobacco cigarettes among 8th, 10th and 12th graders.

In 2016, 1.8 percent of high school seniors smoked half a pack or more of tobacco cigarettes per day, compared with 10.7 percent in 1991.

The use of alcohol had seen similar declines, and the survey had found that the use of illicit drugs other than marijuana by teens was at its lowest levels since tracking began.