A survey put out by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found a rare bit of good news about the opioid crisis. As Aaron Payne reports, fewer teenagers are using opioid drugs.
The Monitoring the Future Survey results shows a continued decrease of opioid misuse by teens.
National Institute of Drug Abuse Director Dr. Nora Volkow says this is encouraging news as overdose and addiction rates continue to rise for adults.
“There’s been concern that teenagers would also be starting to take these drugs and suffer the consequences. But, in fact, we are observing some of the lowest rates of opioid use that we have been monitoring through the survey.”
A good indicator of the continued decrease is in the reported misuse of Vicodin. In 2002 nearly 10 percent of 12th graders reported misuse of the opioid painkiller within the previous year. In the latest survey that had dropped to just two percent.
Not all of the news from the survey conducted by the University of Michigan was positive. Volkow says she’s concerned with the increase in reported overall marijuana consumption.
