While watching television with my 11-year-old sister, a commercial about the decrease in smoking plays over and over again, telling of how Florida has dropped its teen smoking rate to 7 percent. Don’t get me wrong; it is great that teens have stopped purposely giving themselves lung cancer, but in reality, teens are switching to other drugs.

Marijuana, heroin and cocaine are more frequently used in children ages 12-17, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a group concerned with advanced science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. Cigarettes just don’t give teens the high like these drugs do. Drugs today are known for hallucinations, light headed feelings and euphoria. These side effects may sound dangerous, but they are the very feeling that users crave.

Illegal drugs are casual now with 42.5 percent of high school students trying illicit drugs, according to a 2011 study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Cigarettes have started to become less and less popular because the illegal drugs are more popular. I’ve seen it in my own school system. Students have started bringing drugs into school, enough to where they were taken away in handcuffs. Some students are even brave enough to smoke in the bathroom because of drugs.

Smoking cigarettes is becoming less popular in teens, but we should be publicizing to stop illegal drug use.