Florida Substance Abuse Expert: Survey Shows Alarming Rise In Tobacco And Drug Use Among American Schoolchildren

May 6, 1996

GAINESVILLE—A survey of nearly 200,000 American schoolchildren has revealed some sobering facts:

• Cigarette usage by middle and high school students is the highest ever reported.
• Marijuana use has increased more dramatically than use of any other drug
• Hallucinogenic drugs continue to grow in popularity.
• Children are much less fearful of illicit drug use or smoking than they were just a few years ago, and are using more potent and more dangerous drugs at an increasingly younger age.

“These findings are alarming, and should convince us to focus efforts at middle school prevention, and at reinvigorating parents’ groups, national education and prevention activities,” said Mark Gold, a professor of neuroscience, psychiatry, community health and family medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
Gold analyzed the study results in conjunction with the Atlanta-based Parents Resource Institute for Drug Education (PRIDE), of which he is a board of directors member.

He presented the data May 4 at the annual meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry in New York.

The results were based on an annual survey of sixth- through 12th-grade students in 32 states, from California to New York. Nearly 200,000 students were polled anonymously on their drug habits and their perceptions of drug use during the 1994-95 school year.

Data from PRIDE’s previous annual survey were compared by UF senior medical student Chris Johnson and reported changes are statistically significant.

Students are using tobacco and marijuana more frequently, experts said, because the drugs are inexpensive, easy to obtain and glamorized in the media. They further noted that peer disapproval is low and many students don’t view the drugs as dangerous.

The survey showed that one-third of all high school seniors say they smoked marijuana in the past year, and one-fifth smoke at least monthly. Marijuana use increased more dramatically than any other illicit drug.

Other surveys have shown that daily marijuana use now exceeds daily alcohol use among high school seniors, Gold said.

Preliminary evidence also suggested that marijuana use is climbing among African-American students. White students still smoke the drug more than black students. But marijuana smoking surged 195 percent among sixth- through eighth-grade African-American boys (from 4.5 percent to 13.3 percent) in the past four years. Use by African-American girls skyrocketed by 253 percent (1.9 percent to 6.7 percent).

Gold said the rate of cigarette smoking among sixth- through 12th-graders also has soared — a trend that can be partly explained by the steady increase in marijuana smoking during the past three years.

“We know from our research that learning the inhalation of a drug — whether the first drug you inhale is marijuana or whether it’s nicotine — teaches you inhalation and makes you a potential purchaser of other inhalable products,” he said.

Annual cigarette use reported for middle school and high school students was the highest ever. Nearly one in three sixth- through eighth-graders reported smoking cigarettes annually. And nearly half — 44 percent — of the high school students who responded said they had smoked during the past year, compared with 37 percent in a 1988 sample.

Teens, meanwhile, appear to minimize the risks associated with smoking. Only half of all eighth-graders believe smokers run a great risk of physical harm smoking a pack of cigarettes or more daily.

For the fourth consecutive year, hallucinogenic drug use increased among students enrolled in grades six through 12. Hallucinogens include marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, “Nexus,” GHB and other so-called “club” drugs like Rohypnol that are frequently used by participants in all-night parties.

The rate of hallucinogenic drug use was four to 23 times greater among students who report carrying a gun to school, take part in gang activities, thinking of suicide often, threaten to harm another and and among those who get into trouble with police, Gold said.

Gold and his colleagues at PRIDE, UF’s College of Medicine and UF’s Brain Institute lament the trend they see toward glorifying drug experimentation and drug legalization. They are further alarmed by the disregard for the danger of drugs among students in junior and senior high school, and the favorable review that drugs receive in advertising, media and “cyberspace.”

“A permissive atmosphere, drug availability and ’60s nostalgia may be leading a generation of young people naive to today’s more potent drugs into the mire of addiction and illicit-drug related illnesses,” he said.