Module 81 Influences on Drug Use in Enrichment Modules

Module 81 Influences on Drug Use

Drug use by North American youth increased during the 1970s. Then, with increased drug education and a more realistic and deglamorized media depiction of taking drugs, drug use declined sharply (except for a small rise in the mid-1980s). After the early 1990s, the cultural antidrug voice softened, and some drugs for a time were again glamorized in music and films. Consider, for example, historical trends in the use of marijuana:

In the University of Michigan’s annual survey of 15,000 U.S. high school seniors, the proportion who said there is “great risk” in regular marijuana use rose from 35 percent in 1978 to 79 percent in 1991, then retreated to 31 percent in 2016 (Johnston et al., 2017).
After peaking in 1978, marijuana use by U.S. high school seniors declined through 1992, then rose, but has recently been holding steady (see Figure 81.1). Among Canadian 15- to 24-year-olds, 23 percent report using marijuana monthly, weekly, or daily (Health Canada, 2012).

Figure 81.1 Trends in drug use

The percentage of U.S. high school seniors who said they had used alcohol, marijuana, or cocaine during the past 30 days largely declined from the late 1970s to 1992, when it partially rebounded for a few years.

The vertical axis shows the percentage of high school seniors reporting drug use (from 0 to 90% in 10% intervals). The horizontal axis shows the year from 1975 to 2012, in two year intervals. There are three lines, each corresponding to alcohol (in green), marijuana/hashish (in orange), and cocaine consumption (in blue). They show that the use of these three substances declined from the late 1970s to 1992, when it partially rebounded until 1997. It then declined again until 2007 and rebounded until 2012. Alcohol consumption is considerably higher than both marijuana/hashish and cocaine. Reported alcohol consumption declined from 69 & to about 42%. Marijuana fluctuated between 28% in 1975 and 22% in 2012. Cocaine consumption has the lowest consumption, going from 2% in 1975, reaching a peak in 1985 of 7%, and dropping to close to 0% in 2012.

For some adolescents, occasional drug use represents thrill seeking. Yet why do some adolescents, but not others, become regular drug users? In search of answers, researchers have engaged biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis.