The 2006 Monitoring the Future (MTF) study surveys students (8th, 10th, and 12th graders) about lifetime, past year, and past month drug use. The results, released in a press conference today, showed a small decline in the annual prevalence of most illicit drugs and steady use of prescription drugs among the students. Of note also is that the declines were seen more in older students than younger.
Last week's CESAR FAX revealed a gap between children's drug use and parents' awareness of said use. For 6th graders, 21% report alcohol use in the apst year whereas only 5% of parents of 6th graders believe their child had ever even tried alcohol. The gap shrinks with older children: for 12th graders, its 68% that use and 41% of parents that know about it. The trends are similar for other drugs.
This week's CESAR FAX shows US cigarette sales at their lowest since 1951. Sales had followed a steady rise until they peaked in the early 1980's, at which point a generally steady decline has been maintained. The total for last year was 378 billion cigarettes.
A new report published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety shows prescription opioid-related OD deaths are on the rise much more quickly than heroin and cocaine-related deaths. "Between 1999 and 2002, the number of overdose deaths linked to opioids increased by 91.2 percent...compared to 22.8 percent for cocaine and 12.4 percent for heroin."
A Canadian study examined the differences in young adult (aged 20-24) cigarette initiation rates between the different provinces. The study found that the provinces that lowered cigarette taxes by $14-21 (Canadian dollars) per carton showed initiation rates of 10.5% among the group, as compared to the 8.5% among the provinces that hadn't lowered the tax. The provinces had lowered the taxes in the early '90s as a way to reduce cigarette smuggling.
The U.N. released its World Drug Report for 2006 that outlines the recent trends worldwide in drug use, trafficking, and production. Some key findings: a stable number of addicts worldwide, more people are using cannabis, global opiate production dropped by 5%, cocaine production remained stable while seizures increased and use decreased only slightly (an aggregate effect of decreases in the Americas and rising prevalence in Europe).
|
|