A recent report titled A Day in the Life of American Adolescents: Substance Use Facts provides insight into the daily use of drug and alcohol among teenagers in the United States. It also provides information about teens involved in addiction treatment programs. This report was done by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, who analyzed a number of surveys to gather the data into one place.

They discovered what the numbers for drug and alcohol abuse looked like for teens on a typical day in 2006, including how many of them on average were using the substances for the first time. They did this by breaking down numbers from other studies into daily figures. Many of the figures reported about drug and alcohol use are startling, especially to parents of teens. The study involved individuals who were between the ages of 12 and 17 years old.

On a typical day in 2006, there were 1.2 million teenagers who smoked cigarettes, which includes 4000 who did so for the first time. Approximately 631,000 individuals between the ages of 12 and 17 drank alcohol, and over half a million (586,000) of them used marijuana in one day.

In regards to more severe illegal drugs, nearly 4000 teens used heroin, 13,000 engaged in cocaine use, 27,000 adolescents used hallucinogen drugs, and almost 50,000 teens abused inhalants on an average day. They also reported that more than 76,000 individuals under the age of 18 were receiving outpatient addiction treatment in 2005.

SAMHSA hopes that displaying the statistics in this way will more clearly show people how many teens are affected by drug and alcohol abuse. The rates of drug and alcohol abuse among young people have declined slightly in recent years, but it is still a significant problem. It is important to make addiction treatment options readily available to this population.