Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Teen drug use remains low post-pandemic, defying expert expectations of a rebound.
- The University of Michigan study shows significant declines in alcohol, marijuana and nicotine use.
- Research suggests delaying substance use onset may reduce lifetime addiction risks.
SALT LAKE CITY — Call it the expected rebound that didn't happen. After the pandemic, when youths could gather again, experts thought adolescent drug use would increase, since it had dropped when they were more isolated.
Instead, the use of alcohol, marijuana or nicotine cigarettes or e-cigarettes dropped, according to the annual Monitoring the Future study from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. The national annual survey includes students in eighth, 10th and 12th grade.
The survey defined abstention as no past 30-day use of marijuana, alcohol, or nicotine cigarettes or e-cigarettes. Alcohol, marijuana and nicotine vaping are the most common substance use by adolescents, per the study.
"I expected adolescent drug use would rebound at least partially after the large declines that took place during the pandemic onset in 2020, which were among the largest ever recorded," said Richard Miech in a news release. He led the research team.
"Many experts in the field had anticipated that drug use would resurge as the pandemic receded and social distancing restrictions were lifted. As it turns out, the declines have not only lasted but have dropped further," he said.
More than two-thirds of high school seniors abstained from using those particular drugs in 2024 compared to 53% when the first study was conducted in 2017. In 2024, 80% of 10th grade and 90% of eighth grade students abstained, while increases in abstention from 2023 to 2024 were statistically significant.
Miech believes that the repeated declines in youth drug use since the pandemic suggests that taking action to delay when young people start to use the substances could potentially lower substance use trajectories over a lifetime, per the release. And that could "forestall biological processes that contribute to the development of addiction."
Alcohol use
Alcohol use began to decline in the late 1990s. In 2024, 42% of high school seniors reported drinking in the past year, which was down a lot from the three-quarters who used alcohol in 1997. Among 10th graders, just over one-fourth used alcohol in the past year, down from 65% in 1997. Among eighth graders, it dropped to 13%. In 1997, 46% that age had used alcohol.
Marijuana
"In all three grades, the percentage who used marijuana in the past 12 months hovered within a tight window of just a few percentage points in the 20 years from 2000 to 2020," per the release. "In 2021, the first year surveyed after the pandemic onset, substantial declines in marijuana use took place in all three grades. In 12th and 10th grades, these declines have since continued, and past 12-month use levels in 2024 were the lowest in the past three decades, at 26% and 16% respectively. In eighth grade, the percentage in 2024 was 7%, the same for the past four years after dropping from a pre-pandemic level of 11% in 2020."
Nicotine vaping
When the pandemic started, vaping made a U-turn, and the 2020 declines have continued. Vaping had surged from 2017 to 2019, holding steady until the pandemic started in 2020. That's when use began to fall, possibly because adolescents were spending a lot more time at home. But it has not picked back up, to the surprise of the study authors.
Instead, levels in 2024 are "close to where they started in 2017." That was then the survey started asking about vaping. In 2024, past 12-month use was 21% with high school seniors, 15% in 10th grade and just 1 in 10 eight graders said they'd vaped within the past year.
The study is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the National Institutes of Health.
