Ecstasy rose rapidly in popularity from 1998 through 2001, but in 2001 the study's investigators detected the beginning of an increase in the proportion of students coming to see ecstasy as a dangerous drug. That perception strengthened further in 2002 as use began to decline, and use dropped more sharply in 2003 as the perceived dangers of ecstasy continued to increase.
"We have been saying for several years that use of this newly popular drug was not going to diminish until young people began to perceive its use as dangerous," said Lloyd Johnston, the study's principal investigator. "It now appears that teens are finally getting the word about ecstasy's potential consequences, probably due to extensive media coverage of the issue and concerted efforts by several organizations active in educating young people about the dangers of ecstasy."
These organizations include the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. The latter two organizations launched an anti-ecstasy ad campaign in January 2002.
The availability of ecstasy, as reported by the students in the survey, rose sharply during the 1990s, peaked in 2001, and has fallen back a bit since then. But the proportional decline in availability has been much smaller than the proportional decline in use, suggesting that reduced availability did not play a key role in the recent downturn in use.
The 2003 survey is the 29th in the annual series of surveys of American 12th-graders, and the 13th in the series of eighth- and 10th-graders, who were added to the study in 1991. The MTF study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse through investigator-initiated research grants, was designed and conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. The authors of the report are Lloyd Johnston, Patrick O'Malley, Jerald Bachman, and John Schulenberg -- all research professors at the University of Michigan.
Earlier surveys in this series showed that illicit drug use reached its recent peak among teens in 1996 or 1997, depending on grade. Since then, only the eighth-graders have exhibited a gradual, ongoing decline. Use in the upper grades held fairly constant until 2002, when all three grades finally began to show some decline.
That decline continued into 2003, with statistically significant drops observed in annual prevalence in eighth- and 10th-grades and a nearly significant drop in 12th-grade. In addition, fewer young people in each grade say that they have ever used an illicit drug.
See also: Teen Drug Abuse Declines Across Wide Front
