As we approach the end of 2024, the news is full of hopeful signs of a backlash against substance use disorders. Drug overdose death rates have dropped every month of 2024. Now a long-running survey shows adolescent drug use at the lowest levels ever recorded.

Monitoring the Future is an annual survey of students in the 8th, 10th and 12th grades. It is funded by the National Institutes of Health. The survey asks if students have used any of a list of substances in the past 30 days. The substances include alcohol, marijuana, smoking, or vaping. More than two-thirds of 12th graders reported using none of those substances in the past 30 days, up from 53% in 2017, the first year the question was added to the survey.

The good news radiates down the age scale, with 80% of 10th graders reporting “abstinence” compared with 69% in 2017. For 8th graders, the number was 90%, up from 87% when surveying on these issues began.

Beth Mole, senior health reporter for ArsTechnica, noted the “dramatic decline” in substance abuse in an article reviewing the results. She quotes Dr. Richard Miech, principal investigator of Monitoring the Future:

Kids who were in eighth grade at the start of the pandemic will be graduating from high school this year, and this unique cohort has ushered in the lowest rates of substance use we’ve seen in decades.

Mole also quotes Dr. Nora Volkow, the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which funds the survey, saying the results are “unprecedented.” However, Volkow is concerned with exploring the factors that have contributed to the decline.

For the kids who were eighth graders in 2017, the big shift came with the COVID pandemic. The isolation and social distancing resulted in a significant decline in substance abuse, which seems to point to the role of peer pressure and social engagement in substance abuse.

However, when the social distancing recommendations went away and kids came back to school, the declines did not reverse. In fact, the declines in substance abuse for adolescents have just continued. In particular, the marijuana numbers are amazing considering the liberalization of marijuana laws over the past few years.

Researchers have been asking the marijuana question since 2000, and the numbers have been consistent until the pandemic brought them down. However, rather than going up with the end of the pandemic and the increased availability of marijuana, the numbers have continued to decline. In 2023, the most current year of data, marijuana use for 12th graders was 26% and for 10th graders, 16%. Those are the lowest numbers ever recorded.

According to an article in the University of Michigan News, Dr. Miech feels the results “suggest that a delay in drug use initiation during adolescence could potentially lower substance use trajectories over a lifetime.” As we have seen in studies on adolescent drug use, the earlier the behavior starts, the more likely it is to become a problem in the future.

The study also seems to illustrate the contribution of social gatherings in the initiation and practice of substance abuse. It seems to indicate there is a way to harness peer pressure and the power of social gatherings to discourage substance abuse and encourage responsible substance use. We look forward to examining those theories in a future post.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published December 23, 2024.

Sources:

“Unprecedented decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts,” ArsTechnica, December 17, 2024.

“Missing rebound: Youth drug use defies expectations, continues historic decline,” University of Michigan News, December 17, 2024.

Image Copyright: luismolinero.