Highlights from this report include: in 2010, drug use by age group was highest for 12 graders (38 percent), followed by college students (35 percent), 19-28-year-olds (33 percent), and 10th graders (30 percent); increases during the 1990s in use of any illicit drug were substantially larger in both proportional and absolute terms, in the three secondary school grades than in either the college or young adult populations; peak rates for illicit drug use were reached for 8th graders in 1996, for 10th and 12th graders in 1997, for college students in 2001, and in young adults in 2008; the trends in cigarette smoking followed those of illicit drug use, with a generational replacement effect appearing in the 1990s, and increases in cigarette smoking ending for 8th and 10th graders in 1996, for 12 graders in 1997, and among college students in 1999; and across the three older populations (12th graders, college students, and young adults), males were more likely to use illicit drugs than females, and among college students and young adults, males were more likely to report having five or more drinks in a row over a 2-week period than were females. This report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse presents the results of follow-up surveys conducted from 1977 through 2010 as part of the Monitoring the Future research program on drug use among college students and adults that graduated from high school between 1976 and 2009. Data are presented on trends in illicit drug use, alcohol use, and cigarette smoking among American college students, their peers not attending college, all young adult high school graduates of modal ages 19 to 30, and high school graduates at the specific later modal ages of 35, 40, 45, and 50. Tables, figures and index