Percent of Teens Who Said They Drank in the Past Year

Olga Khazan

They are taking fewer painkillers. "Past-year use of the opioid pain reliever Vicodin showed a significant five-year drop, with 4.8 percent of 12th graders using Vicodin for non-medical reasons, half of what it was just five years ago, at 9.7 percent," the study authors write.

In fact, high schoolers are taking less of pretty much all prescription drugs, other than Adderall and other stimulants:

Past Five Year Use of Prescription Drugs Among 12th Graders

University of Michigan 2014 Monitoring the Future Study

What's more, they're using less of pretty much every drug.

Here are some highlights from the report:

"The proportion of 12th-graders reporting use of synthetic marijuana [K2 or "spice"] in the prior 12 months has fallen by nearly half. It was 11 percent when first included in the survey in 2011 and was down to 6 percent in 2014."

"Ecstasy (MDMA) use showed a statistically significant decline in 2014. For the three grades combined use in the prior 12 months dropped from 2.8 percent in 2013 to 2.2 percent in 2014. In 2001, the peak year of use, the rate had reached 6 percent."

Annual Use of Any Illicit Drug other than Marijuana

University of Michigan 2014 Monitoring the Future Study

Interestingly, the number who say MDMA is risky has also declined over time.

Use and Perceived Risk of MDMA

University of Michigan 2014 Monitoring the Future Study

"Salvia, another drug used for its hallucinogenic properties, has fallen to quite low levels of use, and it continued to fall significantly in 2014. For example, it was used in the prior 12 months by 5.7 percent of the 12th-graders in 2009 but by less than 2 percent in 2014."

"Use of hallucinogens other than LSD, which for the most part involves the ingestion of hallucinogenic mushrooms (Psilocybin or "shrooms"), is continuing a longer-term decline."

Abuse of over-the-counter cold and flu medicines "has been falling among teens since 2006 and declined significantly again in 2014, with annual prevalence declining from 4.0 percent to 3.2 percent for the three grades combined."

They are smoking less tobacco than ever before: "Cigarette smoking also reached historical lows among teens in 2014 in all three grades. For the three grades combined, 28 percent reported any smoking in the prior month in 1997, the recent peak year, but that rate was down to 8 percent in 2014."

Percent of 12th Graders Who Smoked Pot or Cigarettes in the Past Month

University of Michigan 2014 Monitoring the Future Study

More teens are now smoking e-cigarettes and weed than are smoking regular cigarettes. Among 10th graders, for example, 16 percent reported using an e-cigarette, but just 7 percent reported smoking the old-fashioned way.

They are using marijuana in roughly the same numbers: The survey found that in the past month, rates of marijuana smoking remained steady among eighth graders at 6.5 percent, 10th graders at 16.6 percent, and 12th graders at 21.2 percent. It's worth noting, though, that in states with medical-marijuana laws, high school seniors were more likely to say they had eaten marijuana edibles than in states without the laws.