Many years ago, Robert Kennedy described how a tiny ripple of hope could eventually become a powerful current of change. In much the same way, the ripple of hope we first saw in our 1997 report is becoming a strong, new current in the lives of America's young people. But, while we can all take pride in our efforts to date to get drugs, alcohol and tobacco out of the mainstream of teenage life, we know there is much work ahead of us. If I can paraphrase Winston Churchill for a moment, this may be the end of the beginning of our drive against drug abuse, but it is hardly the beginning of the end. We've also seen a reduction in crack use among tenth graders.
More young people understand the dangers of abusing inhalants.
Though it remains at unacceptably high levels, alcohol use among teenagers has stabilized. And, even though over one-third of today's teens will be cigarette smokers by the time they graduate from high school, today's report finds that smoking among teenagers not only hasn't increased, among 8th graders it's even declined. But we are also seeing some other trends. Past month use among high school seniors increased from 1.5 percent in 1998 to 2.5 percent in 1999. I also want to point out that past year use among 10th graders climbed from 3.3 to 4.4 percent.