The MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey for the year 2014 was recently released. The study was carried out at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Massachusetts, and it polled 1,503 LS students, which is around 93 percent of the total student body. It is aimed primarily at behaviors that are deemed to be dangerous.

As far as drinking and driving is concerned, the study found that teens are doing it less than they were when the last survey was carried out. Back in 2008, when asked if they’d driven cars after drinking in the previous month, a full 24 percent said that they had. In 2014, that number dropped all the way to just 8 percent.

In fact, alcohol use as a whole was down. It was 68 percent back in 2006, and it dropped to 54 percent for 2014. The students were asked if they had used alcohol at any point in their lives.

Likewise, the amount of people who had been passengers in a car with a driver who had consumed alcohol fell for 2014. When asked if they’d done that in the past month, just 17 percent said they had in 2014, while 28 percent had previously reported doing so in 2008.

However, though marijuana use was down on the whole—from 33 percent back in 2006 all the way to 26 percent just eight years later—the percentage of those who drove vehicles after smoking marijuana went up. Students were again asked about the past month, and 19 percent said they had done it, when only 15 percent made the same claim in 2012.

Those who have been charged with a DUI, regardless of age, must know their legal rights.