US Teen Smoking, Drinking Rate Fall To New Lows

First Posted: Sep 09, 2016 09:41 AM EDT

Movies and television shows depict a lot of drinking and partying from American teenagers, giving them the rep of being big on bad habits. However, it seems that like every other thing on the television, these are exaggerated information.

When it comes to drinking and smoking, there's good news and bad news on U.S. college kids. https://t.co/NCWo7tobyQ pic.twitter.com/BJAuFIQLoN

— WebMD (@WebMD) August 17, 2016

The new federal data showed that in 2015, young Americans have shifted away from these bad habits. Only 9.6 percent of adolescents from the age of 12 to 16 reported using alcohol, down from 17.6 percent in 2002. Then, only 20 percent of teens admitted to smoking, compared to the 32 percent in 2002. These numbers came from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which tracks addiction and mental health issues in the United States.

The trends, according to experts, were encouraging and long-running, and this distinguished younger Americans from their smoking, alcohol-guzzling parents. The principal deputy administrator at the agency, Kana Enomoto said that the rigorous public health efforts to curtail such habits have finally been paying off.

That's not the only habit that they tracked, either. According to The New York Times, the agency also tracked prescription drug use and abuse, as well as the use of illegal drugs such as heroin. Although the decline of heroin use declined between 2014 and2015, she said that the change was not large enough to be statistically significant. However, if the dip does continue, then there will be reason to celebrate: heroin deaths have been increasing rapidly, but data showing the decline of use could be and early indicator of trend reversal.

Unfortunately, prescription drug use and abuse is still high, with around 119 million Americans ages 12 and older - or 44 percent of the population, using prescription psychotherapy drugs in the past year, and the vast majority - about 98 million, using pain relievers.