New study says overall drug use declining among US teens

Illicit drug use by U.S. teens continued to gradually decline overall this year, but the use of prescription painkillers remains popular among young people, according to a federally financed study released Tuesday at the White House.

The survey looked at the behavior of 8th, 10th and 12th graders nationwide _ 50,000 teens in all.

The proportion of 8th graders reporting use of an illicit drug at least once in the 12 months prior to the survey was 24 percent in 1996. It now has fallen to 13 percent _ a drop of nearly half.

Among 10th graders, the rates dropped from 39 percent to 28 percent between 1997 and 2007. Twelfth graders saw a decline from a …