“The data repeatedly has shown the percentage of teens who will get drunk and use marijuana for the first time will at least double between the ninth and 12th grades,” said Helen Jones-Kelley, executive director of Montgomery County Alcohol, Drug Addiction & Mental Health Services (ADAMHS). “On-going drug abuse prevention programs in the schools are necessary beyond the ninth grade because over 83 percent of 12th graders started using marijuana after entering high school.”
Use of non-prescribed pharmaceutical opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone decreased among 12th graders from 12 percent in 2014 to 8 percent in 2016. Heroin use declined from 3.6 percent to 2.1 percent.
A category for e-cigarettes was added to the 2016 survey and 31.6 percent of 12th graders admitted to vaping — the third most prevalent response. Tobacco cigarettes were cited fourth among the same group at 23.5 percent, dropping 5.6 percent since 2014.
The voluntary and anonymous survey was taken by 10,786 students from 20 Miami Valley area schools. The cross-sectional study by the Center for Interventions, Treatment, and Addictions Research at Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine provides estimates of non-medical drug use by school-aged teenagers. It was first administered in 1990 and funded for the first time this year by ADAMHS.
Seventh and ninth graders also reported alcohol to be the most prevalent drug tried, but the numbers are seemingly dropping. Among ninth graders, 27 percent reported experiencing alcohol down from 32.9 percent in 2014. The percentage of seventh graders having used alcohol remained stable at 13.5.
The survey showed more seventh graders (4.1 percent) have tried cigarettes than marijuana, but by the time students reach ninth grade more than three times as many (14 percent) used pot.
Of the 12th grade students, 17 percent of the 2,220 who took the survey said they had operated a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or non-prescribed drugs in their lifetimes. That number is unchanged from 2014.
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