"Monitoring the Future (MTF) is designed to give sustained attention to substance use among the nation’s youth and adults. It is an investigator-initiated study that originated with and is conducted by a team of research professors at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. Since its onset in 1975, MTF has been continuously funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse — one of the National Institutes of Health — under a series of peer-reviewed, competitive research grants. The 2014 survey, reported here, is the 40th consecutive survey of 12th-grade students and the 24th such survey of 8th and 10th graders.
"MTF contains ongoing series of national surveys of both American adolescents and adults. It provides the nation with a vital window into the important but largely hidden problem behaviors of illegal drug use, alcohol abuse, tobacco use, anabolic steroid abuse, and psychotherapeutic drug abuse. For four decades MTF has helped provide a clearer view of the changing topography of these problems among adolescents and adults, a better understanding of the dynamics of factors that drive some of these problems, and a better understanding of some of their consequences. It has also given policymakers, government agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the field some practical approaches for intervening."
Miech, R. A., Johnston, L. D., O’Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. E. (June 2015). Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975–2014: Volume I, Secondary school students. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan.
