Smoking, drinking, pot use fall among 8th-graders

[babylonsister]

:wow: Who knew?

Smoking, drinking, pot use fall among 8th-graders
By Frank Greve | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007


WASHINGTON — At ease, junior high parents.

More eighth-graders — trend-setters of future teen behavior — are saying no to booze, marijuana and cigarettes, federal drug and health authorities declared Tuesday.

Their alcohol drinking in the past year, as reported confidentially by kids themselves, is off 32 percent from substance abuse peaks of the mid-'90s, according to the widely cited Monitoring the Future survey of teens.

Reported marijuana use by eighth-graders in the past year is down 43 percent from its recent peaks in the mid-'90s, the survey found. Reported cigarette smoking also is down 70 percent.

President Bush, who in 2002 pledged a 25 percent overall drug-abuse decline among young people in five years, lauded the progress Tuesday morning. He thanked law enforcement officials, federal anti-drug agencies, school personnel, community groups and parents for their "promising results" in curbing drug imports as well as drug abuse.

"We are definitely seeing a decline in substance abuse among our youngest and most vulnerable teens," said Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the director of the National Institutes of Health, the survey's co-sponsor.

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/22952.html

[eShirl]

1. it's all self-reported by the 8th graders themselves

[KansDem]

2. Decline of the dollar?

Makes all that imported cannabis more expensive! Maybe eight-graders' allowances haven't been keeping up?

As for the smokes and hooch: increase in taxes make them more expensive too!

[Lisa0825]

3. Have you ever tried to txt when drunk or stoned?

Those little keys are hard enough for me when I'm sober! :rofl:

[formerrepuke]

4. BJ parties are popular (so I hear).

[SoCalDem]

5. Mom & Dad's wallets are out of cash these days

:)

[Nailzberg]

6. Today's Kids Less Cool Than Generations Past

That's what the headline should be.

:smoke::toast::hangover:

[HughBeaumont]

7. Right, they just take Adderol, Focalin, Ritalin or Lexapro now.

Don't you love how Bewsh is just hopping on this news? As if his dumb ass had anything to do with this change?

It's called better parenting. I listen and talk to my son and don't give him a reason to rebel against me.

I wouldn't want my kid growing up to be anything like the people I used to party with either. You won't hear it on this board, but not everyone who used and experimented with drugs in the past turned out to be stable, wealthy, perfect-lived individuals with immaculate lungs, bloodstreams and mental states.

[PassingFair]

8. Yup. They've sedated all the interesting ones.

But I must protest, ALL but ONE of my fellow partiers ended up OK.

And a WHOLE LOT of stiff shirts ended up WHACK.

[HughBeaumont]

9. Where I came from, it was the "none of the above" crowd that thrived.

Most of the student council crowd and the partiers never went on to great heights. It was the ones that bided their time and survived that came out on top.

I never saw a positive example of drug use growing up. Pretty much all of the people that did them were bullying assholes. That's probably why I never did them: who wants that drama?