A study conducted by researchers from University of Michigan and sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows a significant reduction in the last decade in the number of young people experimenting with illegal drugs.
These results made President Bush to declare that its Administration’s drug policy is working.
The study showed no serious drop from the last year. In case of the drug ecstasy researchers noted a gradual increase during the past years after an initial period of sharp decline. There is a concern in this matter that maybe now students are more willing to try the drug as because of they might not be so aware of the hazards widely associated with the drug as when its usage had reached its peak in the late 1990’s.
Use of marijuana declined slightly from 11.7 last year to 10.3 this year, among eight-graders.
Illicit use of amphetamines, Ritalin and methamphetamines fell modestly. Use of cocaine, crack cocaine, LSD, heroin and most prescription-type psychoactive drug remained lower because of the sharp drop at the first of the last decade.
The study also showed that rates of illegal drug use at least once in the past year dropped between 1997 and 2007 as follows: from 24 percent to 13 percent among eight-graders, from 39 percent to 28 percent among 10th-graders and from 42 percent to 36 percent among the 12th-graders.