se referred to the use of any drug prohibited by law, regardless of whether it was actually harmful or not. This meant that the use of marijuana, for example, even if it occurred only once in a while, would constitute abuse, while the same level of alcohol would not. In 1973, the National Commission of Marijuana and Drug Abuse declared that this definition was illogical. "The term abuse, the commission stated, 'has no functional utility and has become no more than an arbitrary code word for that drug which is presently considered wrong.' As a result, this definition fell into disuse." [2] Marijuana is by far the most commonly used illegal drug. About half of all instances of illegal drug use are with marijuana alone. Government-sponsored studies indicate a decline in its use throughout the 80's, however. For example, in 1985 roughly 75% of all Americans under the age of 26 had at least tried marijuana, but that proportion had shrunk to 56 percent by 1988. Most people who have tried drugs have done so on an experimental basis. They take the drug from one to a dozen times and then stop. Marijuana is the one illegal drug that users are most likely to continue using. Typically, the regular marijuana smoker is a once-in-a-while user. Nevertheless, a sizable minority does use the drug frequently. [2] On December 18, 1990, the National Institute on Drug Abuse released its survey, showing drug abuse to be declining within the United States. President George Bush called this finding "very encouraging news." The survey had found that the number of people using marijuana once a month or more often declined by 12 percent, to about 10.2 million. [3] In a study conducted by the University of Michigan, the percentage of students who had ever used marijuana or hashish, between the years of 1975 and 1990, ranged from a low of 40.7% by the Class of 1990, to a high of 60.3% by the Class of 1980. The study uses a sample of roughly 17,000 seniors from 135 p...
