How would you classify the issue of drug use among US teens in middle and high school?

A very serious issue (44%) – "I have a couple of teens and I volunteer regularly at the school. I am surrounded by teens on a weekly basis. Drug and alcohol use is definitely out there and in some areas getting way worse."

• "Drug use among teens is absolutely one of the most important issues right now. So many kids are making poorly thought out on decisions on drug use, especially with vapes. As a college student, it’s genuinely depressing how many fellow students I meet that have an unwanted nicotine addiction because they tried something they thought was harmless in high school. We need to eliminate the false narrative that vapes and zyns are safe and “better than smoking”, because they’re not, and they’re causing kids in developmental parts of their lives to unknowingly succumb to lifelong addictions."

"I think the fact that we have any drug use and that overdose deaths are up requires serious attention to be paid to this. Additionally, we have a mental health crisis in this country, which is often the root cause to why teens turn to drugs."

• "I teach High School, I see it every day, I just can't figure out a way to stop it. Use is actually increasing. The "anonymous" reporting in down because they don't trust that they will not be reported. They also are better at hiding the use of drugs."

A somewhat serious issue (28%) – "Drugs have always been a problem with the youth. But with fentanyl being such a problem it just seems to be worse."

• Kids using illicit substances is really terrible. However, I think the government is handling it fairly well, causing the seriousness of the issue to go down. My tween and teen siblings will sing along to the government ads on drugs, and the other day, when my mom told my 11th grade brother that he had better not be spiking drugs (he’s around a decent amount of people that do use them), he said that the government ads are stuck in his head on the topic and that drugs aren’t cool. Apparently the public service ads have been at least somewhat effective."

"I work for the local school district. I see and hear about it every day. I also see middle schoolers smoking pot at the park when I walk my dog."

A somewhat low-stakes issue (16%) – "We should be more worried about them getting shot at school than getting into drugs."

A very low-stakes issue (12%) – "Are students consuming less illicit drugs, or are they getting more savvy regarding privacy? I mean come on, they want us to rely on a teacher giving an 8th-12th grader a piece of paper that asks them to anonymously report what illegal drugs they've used in the past year as a reliable statistic regarding drug use in America?"