Although alcohol use among teenagers dropped, the abuse of prescription drugs increased, according to a survey released Thursday.

Almost 10 percent of high school seniors said they abused Vicodin and 4.7 percent admitted to have excessively taken OxyContin. Both prescription medications are strong opioid pain killers. The 2008 Monitoring the Future: National Results of Adolescent Drug Use survey, conducted for no less than 33 years, also found that seven of the top ten drugs abused by high school teenagers were either prescription or over-the-counter medications.

Teenagers from middle-class white families are the ones who most abuse of prescription drugs. "There is a preconception that this is a problem of minority youth, and that is not true," said Dr. Wilson M. Compton, director of the Division of Epidemiology Services and Prevention Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The report also revealed bright spots: it seems that marijuana and alcohol use among 8th-, 10th- and 12th- graders has declined. But these improvements are at rates that are elevated by international standards, which is “very concerning in terms of the risk to the health of our community in the long run," Dr. Compton said.

Another positive fact disclosed by the survey is that cigarette smoking is at its lowest level since the beginning of the survey. However, the rate is very high. More than one in 10 teenagers smoke on a daily basis, whereas 5.4 percent said they smoked more than a half pack each day.