Fewer adolescents are telling federal researchers that they use marijuana, but the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that most indicators of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use remain relatively unchanged from 2005.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) unveiled the survey results on Sept. 6, with federal officials touting a 25-percent reported decline in marijuana use among male youths between 2002 and 2006 but fretting over the 2.2 million new nonmedical users of prescription drugs, including narcotic painkillers. Most users of prescription drugs for recreational reasons reported getting the drugs free from friends or family members.

"Teens are getting the message about the harms of marijuana and are changing their behavior for the better," said drug czar John Walters. "However, youth abuse of prescription drugs remains a troubling concern. With prescription drug abuse, we're confronting a different kind of drug threat -- one that lurks not in dark alleys, but in medicine cabinets within our homes. Parents have been vital to reducing teen use of street drugs, and now they must engage to prevent the abuse of prescription drugs."

The survey found that current use of marijuana among all youths ages 12 to 17 declined from 8.2 percent in 2002 to 6.7 percent in 2006, and that overall monthly  illicit-drug use among this age group fell from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.8 percent in 2006, with the latter figure basically unchanged from 2005. "The trends in general are very encouraging," said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. 

However, Ray Warren, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, said that marijuana use is "almost exactly where it was 20 years ago" and termed marijuana prohibition "a disastrously failed policy." And the NSDUH reported that youths' perceived risk about use of marijuana, cocaine and heroin remained unchanged between 2002 and 2006.

Use of legal but addictive drugs remained the more prevalent problem in the U.S. Nonmedical use of prescription drugs among young adults, for example, rose from 5.4 percent in 2002 to 6.4 percent in 2006. "The abuse of prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons is of increasing concern," said SAMHSA administrator Terry Cline, Ph.D. 

About half of all Americans are current drinkers, and of these about one in five reported binge drinking in 2006, and 6.9 percent reported heavy drinking -- all rates essentially unchanged from 2005. More than 40 percent of adults ages 18 to 25 reported binge drinkers, and 15.6 percent of this age group were considered heavy drinkers.

Underage drinking rates also remained stable, with the rate of current alcohol use among youths aged 12 to 17 at 16.6 percent in 2006, youth binge drinking rates at 10.3 percent, and heavy drinking reported by 2.4 percent of adolescents.

Roughly 30 percent of all Americans reported past-month smoking in 2006. Current smoking among 12- to 17-year-olds declined from 13 percent in 2002 to 10.4 percent in 2006, but use of smokeless tobacco among this age group crept higher, from 2 percent in 2002 to 2.4 percent in 2006.

Reported new users of various drugs remained mostly unchanged, according to the 2006 NSDUH, but ecstasy -- a drug that seems to have fallen off the public and media radar screen -- gained an estimated 860,000 new used in 2006, down from the 2002 estimate of 1.2 million but a big increase over the 600,000 new users reported in 2005.

Almost 90 percent of the estimated 4.4 million new users of alcohol in 2006 were under age 21. Likewise, 61 percent of new smokers in 2006 were under the legal age of 18, even though more youths reported that they believed there is a great risk in smoking one or more packs of cigarettes daily.

There were an estimated 2.4 million new smokers in 2006, up from an estimated 1.9 million in 2002.

An estimated 9.2 percent of all Americans are classified as dependent on or abusers of alcohol or other drugs, according to the NSDUH, a figure little changed from 2002 to 2006. But just 1.6 percent of the population received any kind of treatment for addiction.

Among those classified as needing treatment but not receiving it, about a third reported trying to get help but failing. SAMHSA administrator Leavitt said society needs to "do more to help people who are already addicted by providing access to a wide array of effective treatment and recovery support programs."