The present study reports several novel findings concerning the incidence and prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse among US youth. Although the NSDUH has shown that the rates of abuse with or without dependence of alcohol or illicit drugs have converged during the past several years among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, we found greater rates for drug abuse (8.9%) than alcohol abuse (6.5%) among adolescents. Our conditional analyses also revealed high rates of regular use and abuse in adolescent substance users. Among alcohol users, 42.2% reported regular use, and 25.9% of these regular drinkers met criteria for abuse with or without dependence. For illicit substances, 40.5% reported using drugs after having had the opportunity to do so, and nearly 36.6% of drug users met criteria for abuse with or without dependence. These conditional rates are higher than base (unconditional) rates reported by prior surveys of youth and therefore provide additional information concerning risk of substance abuse after initial use during adolescence. The risk of drug abuse among adolescent users is of concern considering the recent findings from the
