Smart screens and cell phones possibly keeping youth from drug use

A recent article in The New York Times noted the rise in smart screen and cell phone use, at the same time as a decline in drug use among teens.

Over the last ten years, the two have been slowly gaining momentum, and a new study shows interesting statistics. “Monitoring the Future,” an annual government-funded report measuring drug use by teenagers, found that past-year use of illicit drugs other than marijuana was at the lowest level in the 40-year history of the project for eighth, 10th and 12th graders.

Use of marijuana is down over the past decade for eighth and 10th graders even as social acceptability is up, the study found. Though marijuana use has risen among 12th graders, the use of cocaine, hallucinogens, ecstasy and crack are all down, too, while LSD use has remained steady.

Even as heroin use has become an epidemic among adults in some communities, it has fallen among high schoolers over the past decade, the study found.

Read more at The New York Times.

Image courtesy of The New York Times.