With the decrease of marijuana and alcohol use, the abuse of painkillers such as Vicodin and Oxycontin has increased in teens, according to a new report.

In U.S. improvement has been seen in many drug uses since late ’90s, but from last two years the down ward trend has stopped.

“In this need of the hour we have to put our maximum efforts, because although there have been improvements, but still the rates are higher with respect to international standards, and it’s the matter of the prime concern in terms of the risk to the health of our community in the long run,” Dr Wilson M. Compton said.

Report mentioned the use of prescription painkillers among adolescence remains high, with some 10 percent of seniors saying they used Vicodin and 4.7 percent said they used Oxycontin in the past year.

Out of top 10 drugs prescribed to high school students, seven are over-the-counter drugs including cough syrup and analgesics, the report noted. In actual fact, 15.4 percent of seniors said they used prescription drugs without any reason. “This seems very worrisome to me,” Compton said.

The survey of past 33 years, find that smoking cigarette among teens is always at the bottom. Also, alcohol penetration continues to drop gradually, with a considerable decline among 10th graders in last year, from 56.3 percent in 2007 to 52.5 percent in 2008.