Marijuana down, painkillers/sedatives up for high schoolers.(Brief Article)

Good news about the future from the Monitoring the Future survey, a measurement of drug, alcohol, and cigarette use among adolescent students across the country. Past-month illegal drug use went down almost 19 percent between 2001 and 2005, largely due to drops in past-month use of marijuana in 8th graders (28 percent decrease) and 10th graders (23 percent decrease). The survey covers 8th, 10th, and 12th grades, and is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and conducted by the University of Michigan.

But there are signs of trouble: abuse of prescription medications, especially opioids such as Vicodin and OxyContin, is continuing to increase. One out of …