Is Teenage Substance Abuse a Serious Problem?

he Monitoring the Future survey, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan every year since 1975, measures the extent of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use among high school students as well as students' attitudes toward drug abuse. The results of these surveys show that in the 1990s teenagers' use of drugs (most notably marijuana) has increased, while disapproval of drug abuse has declined---a reversal of the trends of the 1980s. The surveys reveal that the percentage of high school seniors who smoke marijuana once a month increased from 11.9 percent in 1992 to 21.2 percent in 1995. At the same time, the proportion of teenagers who perceive marijuana use to be risky decreased from 79 percent in 1992 to 60.8 percent in 1995.

Many health and public policy experts find such survey results troubling. According to Alan I. Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the decrease in the perceived harmfulness of smoking marijuana is most worrisome because this perception is driving the increase in use of the drug. Leshner and others maintain that the effects of smoking marijuana are particularly harmful to high schoolers. Peter Prover, director of adolescent programs for Phoenix House, an addiction treatment facility in New York, reports that teenagers who smoke pot suffer serious psychological problems. Leshner believes that marijuana use would again decline if teenagers were accurately informed about the risks.

However, a significant number of health specialists maintain that the increase in marijuana use among teenagers does not represent a serious problem. They point out that the percentage of high school students using drugs is still far below the peak levels of the late 1970s. Furthermore, some experts, including John P. Morgan, a professor of pharmacology at City University of New York Medical School, argue that high school students are correct to believe that smoking marijuana is not risky. Morgan notes that there are no scientific studies proving that chronic marijuana use has any harmful effects. Lester Grinspoon, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, contends that the parents of many of today's teenagers smoked marijuana in their youth and suffered no long-term harmful effects.

Regardless of whether marijuana is truly harmful, Lloyd D. Johnston, lead investigator of the Monitoring the Future survey, predicts, "As long as we are seeing erosions in the dangers youngsters believe to be associated with these drugs, ... I expect that we will see a continuation of the increase in drug use."