by Lloyd D. Johnston

About the author: Lloyd D. Johnston is a research scientist at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

Under a series of investigator-initiated, competing research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funds Monitoring the Future, my colleagues and I have conducted an annual national survey of 12th grade students in the coterminous United States each year since 1975. Starting in 1991 we have also surveyed nationally representative samples of 8th graders and 10th graders annually, with the result that some 50,000 students located in approximately 420 secondary schools now participate in the survey each year.

Among the subjects we track that are of most relevance are: (1) students' use of a wide range of drugs, (2) their disapproval of the use of these drugs, (3) their beliefs about the harmfulness of these drugs...