HHS HealthBeat (January 05, 2006)

Kids taking drugs

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A survey supported by the National Institutes of Health says teen-agers have been using drugs in general less since 2001. But the look at 8th, 10th, and 12th graders finds that they were using some specific drugs more.

The 2005 Monitoring the Future report shows a 19 percent drop in overall drug use. The director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Nora Volkow:

"Prevention works, and in this case, interfering with drug utilization in young people is likely to actually protect them later during their adult life of becoming addicted." (11 seconds)

But Dr. Volkow notes that there's work to be done. For instance, although alcohol use is down, more than two-thirds of seniors reported drinking in the previous year. And abuse of some prescription drugs was up.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: June, 09 2006