Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2013: Overview, Key Findings on Adolescent Drug Use

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is a long-term study of American adolescents, college students, and adults 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, competing research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The 2013 MTF survey encompassed about 41,700 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students in 389 secondary schools nationwide. The first published results are presented in this report. Recent trends in the use of licit and illicit drugs are emphasized, as well as trends in the levels of perceived risk and personal disapproval associated with each drug. This project has shown these beliefs and attitudes to be particularly important in explaining trends in use. In addition, trends in the perceived availability of each drug are presented. The report begins with a synopsis of the design and methods used in the study and an overview of the key results from the 2013 survey. This is followed by a separate section for each individual drug class, providing 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 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 "Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2013. Volume 1, Secondary School Students," see ED578546.]