ABSTRACT
For the past 30 years, the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) has conducted Monitoring the Future (MTF), a survey of a nationally representative sample of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students’ use of and attitudes toward alcohol and drugs throughout the United States (2004). The good news is that lifetime and past-month use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines, LSD and Ecstasy (MDMA), does appear to have dramatically declined over the past decade. The figures translate into approximately 400,000 fewer youth using substances in 2004 than in 2002. Additional good news is that empirically based prevention and early intervention programs therefore appear to be beginning to have a positive impact.
