A survey released Thursday revealed that fewer and fewer teenagers were in the habit of smoking cigarettes, although prescription drug abuse was reported as still common practice among youngsters.

The 2008 Monitoring the Future poll, which has been conducted for a period of 33 years now, showed that approximately 10 percent of high school seniors were using Vicodin for nonmedical purposes, while 4.7 percent of them abused OxyContin.

Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funds the poll, stated that even though cigarettes and alcohol abuse were on a downwards path among teens, the fact they were abusing prescription meds instead was an alarming finding.

Conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, the survey also found that 11 percent of eighth-graders, 24 percent of 10th-graders and 32 percent of 12th-graders had admitted to having smoked marijuana within the last year.

Nevertheless, the encouraging news is that cigarette smoking has reached its lowest rate where teenagers are concerned, even though 1 in 10 high school seniors reported they smoked on a daily basis, whereas 5.4 percent of them said they smoked more than a half a pack per day.

As for alcohol abuse, it has also registered a decline this year, with a steep drop among 10th-graders with regards to all forms of alcohol abuse, including lifetime use, use in the last month and binge drinking.

The survey included over 46,000 students from public and private high schools throughout the United States.