In the late 1980s and early 1990s, MDMA as "ecstasy" was widely used in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, becoming an integral element of rave culture and other psychedelic/dancefloor-influenced music scenes, such as Madchester and Acid House.

The percentage of youths aged 12 to 17 indicating great risk in smoking marijuana once a month increased from 32.4 percent in 2002 to 34.9 percent in 2003, but the percentage remained unchanged between 2003 and 2008 (33.9 percent. The rate of youths aged 12 to 17 perceiving great risk in smoking marijuana once or twice a week also increased from 51.5 percent in 2002 to 55.0 percent in 2005, but the rate declined between 2005 and 2008 (53.1 percent). Coincident with trends in perceived great risk of marijuana use, the prevalence of past month marijuana use among youths aged 12 to 17 decreased between 2002 (8.2 percent) and 2005 (6.8 percent), then remained stable between 2005 and 2008 (6.7 percent).

A majority of underage current drinkers in 2009 reported that their last use of alcohol in the past month occurred either in someone else's home (55.9 percent) or their own home (29.2 percent). Underage females were more likely than males to have been in a restaurant, bar, or club on their last drinking occasion (10.5 vs. 7.0 percent).

In 2009, there were 617,000 persons aged 12 or older who had used cocaine for the first time within the past 12 months; this averages to approximately 1,700 initiates per day. This estimate was similar to the number in 2008 (722,000). The annual number of cocaine initiates declined from 1.0 million in 2002 to 617,000 in 2009. The number of initiates of crack cocaine declined during this period from 337,000 to 94,000.