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America's teens are smoking less and popping pain pills more. The lure of the family medicine cabinet helped nearly one in 10 high school seniors to try prescription painkillers last year, even as their generation continued turning away, at least slightly, from smoking and many other drugs.
The decline in illicit drug use by teens was modest but continued a trend, according to the government's annual study of drug use by eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders.And while teen cigarette smoking fell to its lowest level since the survey began, eighth-graders showed their first increase since 1996 in smoking in the month before the survey.

The survey of nearly 50,000 teens found that 21.4 percent of eighth-graders had used some illicit drug in their lifetimes, down from 21.5 percent a year earlier. For 10th-graders, it was 38.2 percent, down from 39.8 percent, and for 12th-graders it was 50.4 percent, down from 51.1 percent.

Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called that continuing decline "quite remarkable news." But, she said, abuse of prescription drugs by teens is a growing problem.    

                                                         http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3545995.html