National Survey Reveals 2009 Trends in Illicit Prescription Drug Use Among Teens

June 17, 2010 4:38 pm

The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance – United States, 2009 (PDF) reveals that, nationwide, a little over 20% of students in grades 9 through 12 had taken prescription drugs without a doctor’s prescription one or more times during their life, as compared with 36.8% who had tried marijuana one or more times, and 72.5% who had had at least one drink of alcohol on at least 1 day in their life. The survey also revealed that 4.1% of students had used methamphetamines one or more times during their life, and 3.3% had taken steroid pills or shots without a doctor’s prescription one or more times during their life. The report, published in the June 4, 2010 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, summarizes results from the 2009 national school-based Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) conducted by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state and local school-based YRBSs conducted by state and local education and health agencies. YRBS data are used to assess trends in priority health-risk behaviors among high school students to measure progress toward achieving 15 national health objectives for Healthy People 2010 and three of the 10 leading health indicators. The report concludes that “more effective school health programs and other policy and programmatic interventions are needed to reduce risk and improve health outcomes among youth.”