Smoking, Drinking In High School Not Cool Anymore

Unhealthy habits like smoking, drinking and using drugs hit the teens. In the past years, individuals engaged in these activities are getting younger. However, the trend has changed, at least for high school students.

According to ESchoolToday, teenagers usually engage in smoking, drinking or drugs for several reasons. Among the reasons are peer pressure, to feel grown up, to relieve boredom and stir excitement, or escape and relax. Some tried these things out of curiosity. Others take it to fit into their group while others do so to rebel or gain confidence.

However, high school students no longer find these things interesting or appealing. Per Albany Daily Star, the annual survey of 8th, 10th and 12th graders from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) among high schoolers is finally out. The results show that substance abuse among high school students has remained stable or dropped in most categories.

"We are heartened to see that most illicit drug use is not increasing, non-medical use of prescription opioids is decreasing, and there is improvement in alcohol and cigarette use rates," NIDA director Dr. Nora D. Volkow said.

Alcohol and drug use are no longer appealing to high school students. In fact, the number of students using alcohol and cigarette has dropped. Unfortunately, the use of marijuana has not declined. In fact, for the first time, researchers learned that more high school seniors smoke marijuana than tobacco on a daily basis.

According to Professor Lloyd Johnston, the study's principal investigator, alcohol in all three grades had the steepest decline among youngsters. This suggests that all the efforts of the parents, community and state have finally paid off.

Binge drinking has dropped by five percent among 8th graders, 11 percent in 10th graders and 17 percent in 12-graders. In addition, fewer teens were using illicit drugs like ecstasy and heroin. The only drug teens engaged to was marijuana.

It seems that marijuana remains to be the top concern now. Do you have any idea how to control the students' access to marijuana? Is there any way to reduce the growing number of students using marijuana? Should it be a concern given that marijuana has been legalized  at least to some states already?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.