Tobacco Alcohol and Youth - Do They See The Dangers?

Tobacco

According to the 2003 Monitoring the Future survey, the percentage of eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders who perceived smoking a pack or more of cigarettes a day as harmful had increased substantially since 1991. (See Table 6.5 and Table 6.6.) The perceived risk of smoking grew most between 1999 and 2000. This increase came on the heels of the $206 billion settlement between the states' attorneys general and the tobacco industry. The Truth campaign was also launched about this time. This campaign featured provocative statistics and information about the dangers of smoking and the history of the tobacco industry. In fact, teenagers helped create these ads, which perhaps speaks to their effectiveness among adolescents.

Substantial proportions of students at all three grade levels thought that regular use of smokeless tobacco was harmful as well, although at levels noticeably lower than those for cigarette smoking. For example, 72.1% of seniors thought that smoking one or more packs of cigarettes per day was harmful, while only 43.3% thought the regular use of smokeless tobacco was harmful. (See Table 6.6.)

The PRIDE Survey questions students in grades six through twelve about their attitudes regarding and experiences with tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. The data from the 2003-2004 PRIDE National Summary show that only 4.2% of students in grades six through twelve believed that smoking cigarettes causes no harm to health. Slightly more than 51% thought that using cigarettes is very harmful to health. Fewer students believed that smoking cigars is harmful. (See Table 6.7.)

TABLE 6.5
Trends in harmfulness of drug use as perceived by eighth and tenth graders, 1991-2003
HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK PEOPLE RISK HARMING THEMSELVES (PHYSICALLY OR IN OTHER WAYS), IF THEY
SOURCE: Adapted from Lloyd D. Johnston, Patrick M. O'Malley, Jerald G. Bachman, and John E. Schulenberg, "Table 4. Trends in Harmfulness of Drugs as Perceived by Eighth and Tenth Graders, 1991-2003," in Monitoring the Future: National Results on Adolescent Drug Use—Overview of Key Findings, 2003, The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Drug Abuse, June 2004, http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/overview2003.pdf (accessed March 3, 2005)

TABLE 6.6
Trends in harmfulness of drug use as perceived by twelfth graders, 1990-2003
HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK PEOPLE RISK HARMING THEMSELVES (PHYSICALLY OR IN OTHER WAYS), IF THEY
SOURCE: Adapted from Lloyd D. Johnston, Patrick M. O'Malley, Jerald G. Bachman, and John E. Schulenberg, "Table 5. Long-Term Trends in Harmfulness of Drugs as Perceived by Twelfth Graders," in Monitoring the Future: National Results on Adolescent Drug Use—Overview of Key Findings, 2003 University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Drug Abuse, June 2004, http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/overview2003.pdf (accessed March 3, 2005)

Alcohol

Results from the 2003 Monitoring the Future survey revealed that most students do not perceive taking one or two regular drinks of alcohol as risky behavior; this has been the case for some time. Students were also less likely to think that having five or more drinks once or twice each weekend (a quantity described as binge drinking) was harmful than they had in earlier years of the survey. (See Table 6.5, Table 6.6, and Figure 6.3.) Of eighth graders, 56.5% thought that having five or more drinks on the weekend was unhealthful, down from 59.1% in 1991. Of tenth graders, 51.6% saw five drinks or more on the week-end as harmful in 2003, down from a high point of 55.9% in 1992. In 2003, 43.5% of high school seniors perceived having five or more drinks once or twice on the weekend as risky, the lowest level in the twelve years shown. The highest level for twelfth graders perceiving health risk in binge drinking was 49.5% in 1996.

It is useful to reframe the findings of this survey. According to the data shown in Table 6.5 and Table 6.6, in 2003, 43.5% of eighth graders did not see five or more drinks on one occasion (binge drinking) as risky behavior. Of tenth graders, 48.4% did not see this as risky behavior. In addition, the majority of twelfth graders (56.5%) did not see this as risky behavior.

Results of the 2003-2004 PRIDE survey (see Table 6.7) show that fewer students in grades six through twelve think that using liquor is harmful to health compared with cigarettes. On average, 8% of students think that using liquor poses no harm to health, while only 38.8% view using liquor as very harmful. Even fewer students believe that it is harmful to use beer—only 30.9% of students overall in grades six through twelve thought that using beer was very harmful to health.

Changing Attitudes

Table 6.8 and Table 6.9 show rates of student disapproval of others who use alcohol and tobacco, and illustrate how the attitudes of eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders have changed over time. In 2003, 84.6% of eighth graders disapproved or strongly disapproved of smoking at least one pack of cigarettes a day, while 81.4% of tenth graders and 74.8% of twelfth graders shared this view.

In the most recent years of the survey, more students in all three grades expressed tolerance for the regular consumption of alcohol than they did in the early 1990s. In 2003, 77.1% of eighth graders, 74.2% of tenth graders, and 68.9% of twelfth graders disapproved of taking one or two drinks nearly every day. Disapproval rates for binge drinking were higher than for regular drinking for eighth graders, but lower among tenth and twelfth graders. (See Table 6.8 and Table 6.9.)