PCP: Trends in Availability as Perceived by 8th, 10th, and 12th Graders

(Percentages saying fairly easy or very easy to get)

Avl Graph
  1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019   2018
2019
Change		   2014
2019
Change		 Proportional
Change		   Peak year
2019
Change		 Proportional
Change		   Low year
2019
Change		 Proportional
Change
How easy to get 8th Grade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.8 18.0 18.5 17.7 19.0 19.6 19.2 17.5 17.1 16.0 15.4 14.1 13.7 11.4 11.0 10.5 9.5 10.1 9.1 8.0 7.9 6.7 5.8 5.5 5.1 4.8 4.6 4.7 5.6 | 0.9 | 0.1 1.2 | -14.0*** -71.5 | 1.0 20.8
  10th Grade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.2 23.7 23.4 23.8 24.7 26.8 24.8 23.9 24.5 25.0 21.6 20.8 19.4 18.0 18.1 15.8 15.4 14.4 13.4 12.6 12.0 10.2 9.4 8.3 9.0 7.6 7.1 7.3 9.5 | 2.2* | 1.2 14.7 | -17.3*** -64.5 | 2.4* 33.6
  12th Grade . . . . . . . . . . . 22.8 24.9 28.9 27.7 27.6 31.7 31.7 31.4 31.0 30.5 30.0 30.7 26.7 28.8 27.2 27.5 21.9 24.2 23.2 23.1 21.0 20.6 19.2 18.5 17.2 14.2 15.3 11.1 13.8 12.6 10.6 10.8 11.0 | 0.2 | -0.1 -0.7 | -20.7*** -65.3 | 0.4 4.2

Source: The Monitoring the Future study, the University of Michigan.
Answer alternatives were: (1) Probably Impossible, (2) Very Difficult, (3) Fairly Difficult, (4) Fairly Easy, and (5) Very Easy.
The year with the highest percentage of those saying great risk is noted in bold. The year with the lowest percentage after that peak is underlined.
For 8th and 10th graders, beginning in 2012, data based on two thirds of N indicated on the table of Ns.
For a table of Ns click here: Notes
*** = p < 0.001 ** = p < 0.01 * = p < 0.05