Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2020. Volume I, Secondary School Students

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is designed to give attention to substance use among the nation's youth and adults. Since its onset in 1975, MTF has been funded continuously by the National Institute on Drug Abuse -- one of the National Institutes of Health -- under a series of peer-reviewed, competitive research grants. The 2020 survey, reported here, is the 46th consecutive survey of 12th grade students and the 30th such survey of 8th and 10th graders. MTF contains ongoing national surveys of both adolescents and adults in the United States. It provides the nation with a vital window into the important but often hidden problem behaviors of use of illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and psychotherapeutic drugs (not under a doctor's orders). For more than four decades, MTF has helped provide a clearer view of the changing topography of these problems among adolescents and adults, a better understanding of the dynamics of factors that drive some of these problems, and a better understanding of some of their consequences. It has also given policymakers, government agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the field some practical approaches for intervening. Two of the major topics included in the present volume are: (1) the "prevalence and frequency" of use of a great many substances, both licit and illicit, among U.S. secondary school students in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades; and (2) "historical trends" in use by students in those grades. Distinctions are made among important demographic subgroups in these populations based on gender, college plans, region of the country, population density, parent education, and race/ethnicity. MTF has demonstrated that key attitudes and beliefs about drug use are important determinants of usage trends, in particular the amount of risk to the user perceived to be associated with the various drugs and disapproval of using them; thus, those measures also are tracked over time, as are students' perceptions of certain relevant aspects of the social environment -- in particular, perceived availability, peer norms, use by friends, and exposure to use by others of the various drugs. Data on grade of first use, discontinuation of use, trends in use in lower grades, and intensity of use are also reported here. [For "Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2020. Volume II, College Students & Adults Ages 19-60," see ED615085. For the report from the previous year, see ED608265.]