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Article: Abuse of inhalants and prescription drugs: real dangers for teens: overall drug use among teens is down, except for three dangerous substances.(Heads up real news about drugs and your body: a message from scholastic and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA))
- Article from:
- New York Times Upfront
- Article date:
- March 28, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Scholastic, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Listen up. There's some good news, and bad news, about teens and drugs.
First, the good news: Drug use among teens has decreased. A 2004 NIDA-sponsored study called "Monitoring the Future" found that the number of U.S. students in grades 8, 10, and 12 who said they'd used drugs in the past month dropped a whopping 17 percent compared to 2001. In real numbers, that means about 600,000 fewer teens use drugs now than in 2001--that's a whole lot of kids making the smart choice to protect their brains and bodies.
Okay. Now for the bad news. The same survey found one category of substances--inhalants--is bucking the trend. Inhalant abuse is on the upswing ...