Chuck Grassley: “while we were away for the winter break, the annual high school survey on drug use trends among 8th, 10th, and 12th…”

“while we were away for the winter break, the annual high school survey on drug use trends among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders came out. This annual Monitoring the Future study, released on December 17, revealed little change in trends of illicit drug use among our young people. The administration has tried to put a happy face on the results. But there is little to be happy about. Although the Monitoring the Future study found that the increase in drug use among teens has slowed down, what the data show is that use and experimentation remain at high levels. You can see from this chart that we still face the discouraging fact that nearly 50 percent of our high school seniors reported use of marijuana, not only in 1999, but in the 2 previous years as well. In fact, 12th grader use of marijuana is at its highest since 1992. In addition, 23 percent of the high school seniors questioned in the past 3 years, reported that they had used marijuana in the past 30 days. Sadly, the study also found that the percentage of 10th graders who reported use of marijuana increased from 39.6 percent in 1998 to nearly 41 percent in 1999. Hardly news to find comfort in. Marijuana remains a gateway drug for even worse substances and this next chart shows overall illicit drug use among high school seniors. You can see in this second chart that, in 1999, nearly 55 percent of 12th graders reported using an illicit drug in their lifetime.”