Despite the horror stories of teenagers overdosing everyday, a new study says drug use and smoking for high school students is on a steady decline.

A report put out on Tuesday from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) says the use of illicit drugs, including marijuana, alcohol, tobacco and prescription medication is winding down among teenagers.

“It is encouraging to see more young people making healthy choices not to use illicit substances,” said National Drug Control Policy Director Michael Botticelli. "We must continue to do all we can to support young people through evidence-based prevention efforts as well as treatment for those who may develop substance use disorders.

Illicit drug use for 8th graders was the lowest in the Monitoring the Future survey’s history, while illicit drug use for substances other than marijuana is down from recent peaks in all three grades, the NIH said.

For 8th graders, marijuana use in the past month dropped to 5.4 from 6.5 percent in 2015, while daily use dropped to .7 from 1.1 percent the prior year. For high school seniors, 22.5 percent said they smoked marijuana in the last month and 6 percent said they used daily, which was relatively the same as 2015. The same stability applied to 10th graders, however, that percentage is at their lowest levels over two decades.

The survey suggests that marijuana and e-cigarettes are more popular than tobacco cigarettes, with more than 12 percent of 12th graders smoking e-cigarettes over 10 percent smoking traditional cigarettes.

In 2001, more than 53 percent of 12th graders had reported being drunk at least once. But in NIH’s latest survey, that number dropped to 37.3 percent, the report’s lowest rates ever.

Sourced from NIH.

Where you live in the United States may determine how you die, a new study suggests.

While people in the southeastern part of the country will more likely to die of heart disease, people in the southwest are at higher risk of dying from suicide or homicide.

Ali Mokdad, a professor at the University of Washington, reviewed mortality data for more than 80.4 million records between 1980 and 2014 to conclude what causes a person’s death in each county of the United States.

Mokdad said by splitting the data up into counties, his analysis could help county and city health departments to target more specific problems, CBS reports.

“You can see what kind of disparities we have, and what are driving these disparities,” Mokdad said, CBS reported. “Many counties, especially rural counties, don’t have the resources to tackle every health problem, and so they need to prioritize.”

Not only did Mokdad find disparities between states; the researcher also found large deficits from county-to-county.

While people living in parts of Colorado tend to drink more causing them to die from cirrhosis or other chronic liver diseases, the northern and central part of the state benefits from “living healthier than anywhere else,” Mokdad said.

The issues most likely to mainly impact death trends is social and economic factors, access to health care, quality of health care and preventable risky behaviors.

One in six Americans most likely take an antidepressant.

A team of researchers found that more than 16 percent of 242 million adults in the United States have filled one or more prescription for psychiatric drugs in 2013, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Internal Medicine.

Thomas Moore of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices and his colleagues concluded that 20.8 percent of white adults reported taking one or more psychiatric drug, which was nearly double their Hispanic and black adult counterparts. Fewer than 5 percent of Asian-Americans reported taking the drugs.

Moore also found that people prescribed the medication are taking them long-term, a concern the researchers have for habit forming psychiatric drugs like Valium or Xanex.

"Most psychiatric drug use reported by adults was long term, with 84.3 percent having filled three or more prescriptions in 2013 or indicating that they had started taking the drug during 2011 or earlier,” the report said. “Prescribing information for the leading antidepressants includes limited information about appropriate duration of treatment. However, benzodiazepines have warnings about drug dependence, tolerance, withdrawal, and rebound symptoms.”

In a previous study, the researchers found that most long-term users on a specific psychiatric drug despite it being recommended for short-term use. Many patients were combing the medication with other central nervous systems depressants despite warnings.

Sourced from JAMA.