Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2016: Overview, Key Findings on Adolescent Drug Use

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is a long-term study of American adolescents, college students, and adult high school graduates through age 55. It has been conducted annually by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research since its inception in 1975 and is supported under a series of investigator-initiated, competitive research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The 2016 MTF survey involved about 45,500 students in 8th-, 10th-, and 12th grades enrolled in 372 secondary schools nationwide. The first published results based on the 2016 survey are presented in this report. The report begins with a synopsis of the design and methods used in the study and an overview of the key results from the 2016 survey. A separate section for each individual drug class is then provided, including figures that show trends in the overall proportions of students at each grade level (1) using the drug; (2) seeing a "great risk" associated with its use (perceived risk); (3) disapproving of its use (disapproval); and (4) saying that it would be "fairly easy" or "very easy" to get if they wanted to (perceived availability). For 12th graders, annual data are available since 1975 and for 8th and 10th graders since 1991, the first year they were included in the study. [For the 2015 edition of this report, see ED578539.]