Kids Wising Up

Good news for the teenage generation of the United States. According to the annual Monitoring the Future survey,  American teens are drinking alcohol less, smoking less and doing fewer drugs than their predecessors in more than 40 years of tracking. Wow, sounds good. But the cynic in me says they might have traded addiction to drugs and alcohol for addiction to that crazy technology they use non stop. Oh well, technology addiction is far less damaging to the body. so the trade-off is a good one.

But what about all those U.S. states that have legalized marijuana? Apparently, that isn't creating more drug use among teens overall, because the use of marijuana is down among all 8th- and 10th-graders. In states with legalized pot there is a small increase in smoking by teens. The survey results suggest to those who study this that a decline in smoking may be largely responsible for the decline in drug use. For young teens, smoking is a gateway to other illicit activities, and by cutting smoking rates, fewer are moving on to alcohol and other drugs. In 1991, nearly 11% of U.S. high school seniors smoked a half pack of cigarettes or more a day. This year, only 1.8% said they smoke that much, and 10.5% reported any smoking in the last month.

Even e-cigarette use fell among U.S. high school seniors, from 16% last year to 12% this year. Largely because of anti smoking campaigns, cigarette smoking is now seen by most teens as a vulgar and unhealthy habit. Alcohol use is also at its lowest level ever:  37.3% of 12th-graders said they have been drunk at least once, down from a high of 53.2% in 2001. One theory is that social media is keeping kids from using alcohol and drugs by keeping kids busy at home and away from peer pressure to drink or use drugs. Teens now don’t have as many occasions to get together where the use of drugs would be because their brains have been taken over by cell phones, video games and those useless apps that kids love so much. Yep! idiotic Face book and other technological temptations might actually serve some good by distracting kids from substance abuse.

Research also says that teens largely avoid the opioid epidemic that is so popular with millenials. Among 12th-graders, use of prescription opioid pain relievers has dropped significantly. Vicodin use, for example, fell from nearly 10% a decade ago to 2.9% this year. Who needs drugs when you can destroy your brain with your cell phone!

Anyway, it's optimistic news that the next generation may be more focused on dealing with real life rather than running away from it with drug and alcohol abuse.