Alcohol And Cigarette Use By Mansfield Students Down

MANSFIELD, MA — Cigarette and alcohol use by Mansfield students continues to decline, with the exception of marijuana.

The results of the 2017 Communities That Care Survey results were presented to the school committee by head nurse Christine Dooling this week. The survey has been conducted every other year since 2007.

The survey asked students in sixth, eighth, and 10th grade about their cigarette, marijuana, and alcohol use in the past 30 days. Cigarette use continues to go down, with use near non-existent in sixth grade, 0.9 percent use in eighth grade, and 2.3 percent of 10th graders admitted to smoking in the past 30 days. According to data going back to 2009, it’s the first time eighth grade use is below 1 percent and 10th grade use is down from over 8 percent in 2009.

Alcohol use remains low in sixth grade, around 5.9 percent in eighth grade, and at 35.8 percent in 10th grade. Dooling said the percentage of 10th graders who have consumed alcohol in the past 30 days has remained stable aside from a decrease in 2013.

“The good news is that it’s not going up but we’re not doing anything to budge it down,” she said.

While still lower than in 2009, marijuana just went up in 2017. Only 1 percent of sixth graders and 5.9 percent of eighth graders admitted to using marijuana, while use in 10th grade went up from 18.4 percent in 2015 to 22.4 percent in 2017. The percentage of 10th grade students who think that there is a moderate or great risk with consuming marijuana has decreased as well.

Dooling said the next survey will be done in the winter of 2019 and she hopes to include questions about vaping.

Below are the results from the 2017 survey and data compared to surveys going back to 2009.

2017 Survey by DanLibon on Scribd

2017 Survey Compared by DanLibon on Scribd

Image: File Photo