NCJ Number
224794
Date Published
October 2008
Length
342 pages
Annotation
This report presents findings on drug use among college students and adults ages 19-45 as determined by the 2007 Monitoring the Future program, which is a series of annual surveys of nationally representative samples of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students and adults designed to determine levels and trends in certain behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and conditions in the population.
Abstract
For virtually all drugs, available age comparisons show that in 2007 there was much higher lifetime prevalence for the older age groups, with surprisingly high levels among adults in their early 30s through their mid-40s. The adjusted lifetime prevalence data were most striking for 45-year-olds, who were passing through adolescence near the peak of the drug epidemic. Some 83 percent of them reported trying an illicit drug, leaving only 17 percent who had reported not doing so. In 2007, the adjusted lifetime prevalence data among 29- to 30-year-olds reached 69 percent of any illicit drug, 65 percent for marijuana, 43 percent for any illicit drug other than marijuana, and 18 percent for cocaine. Thus, even among young Americans who graduated from high school in 1995 and 1996, i.e., after the peak of the larger drug epidemic, only 31 percent had never tried an illegal drug. Despite the higher lifetime prevalence rates among older age groups, however, these groups generally show annual or 30-day prevalence rates that are no higher than among today’s 12th-graders. In fact, for a number of drugs, the levels reported by older respondents are lower, suggesting that the incidence of quitting more than offsets the incidence of initiating use of these drugs during the years after high school. In 2007, lifetime prevalence of drug use among college students was lower for all illicit drugs compared with use among their age peers not enrolled in college. Extensive tables and figures