Adolescents’ substance use at or significantly below pre-pandemic levels: report

Story at a glance

• New data from the Monitoring the Future survey detail encouraging trends in youth substance use.

• This year, use either remained steady or dipped below pre-pandemic levels for most substances assessed. 

• Overall, rates were steady compared with those measured in 2021. 

Use of any illicit drug among American 8th, 10th, and 12th graders remained at or significantly below pre-pandemic levels in 2022, according to new survey results published Thursday. 

This past year, 11 percent of eighth graders, 21.5 percent of 10th graders and 32.6 percent  of 12th graders reported using any illicit drug. Findings suggest reported substance use among American youths remained steady compared with rates seen in 2021, when they significantly declined thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Researchers suspect school closures, fewer in-person activities and social distancing all likely contributed to lower substance use rates reported last year.

Responses were collected as part of the Monitoring the Future Survey, which polls 8th, 10th and 12th grade students each year. As part of the survey, students self-report their substance use over different time periods, such as in the past 30 days. Responses are nationally representative of the U.S. population. 

“The Monitoring the Future Survey is one of the best and most timely tools we have to monitor and understand changes in substance use among young people over time, including through historic events such as the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a statement.

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“It is encouraging that we did not observe a significant increase in substance use in 2022, even as young people largely returned to in-person school, extracurricular activities, and other social engagements.”

Adolescents most commonly reported using alcohol, nicotine vaping, and cannabis this year.

“For substances where reported past-year use did increase between 2021 and 2022, the vast majority of reported use remained at or below the pre-pandemic levels observed in 2020,” the authors wrote. 

Nicotine vaping, cannabis use, and use of any illicit drug apart from marijuana remained stable in all three grades surveyed. 

“The fact that cannabis use and nicotine vaping did not appear to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2022 is a fascinating data point,” said Richard A. Miech, team lead of the Monitoring the Future study at the University of Michigan, in a release. Going forward, researchers should continue to monitor these trends to understand how they impact future drug use and outcomes, he added.

While alcohol use remained stable for eighth and 10th graders, rates returned to pre-pandemic levels among 12th graders, with 52 percent of these students reporting using alcohol in the past year. 

Use of narcotics apart from heroin also rose slightly among high school seniors in 2022 to 1.7 percent, but was consistent with 2019 and 2020 levels of 2.7 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively. 

Despite the overall decline or stability of illicit drug use in this age group, additional research details a rise in overdose deaths among those aged 14 through 18, largely resulting from fentanyl contamination in counterfeit prescription pills.

“The proliferation of fentanyl in the drug supply is of enormous concern. Though the data indicate that drug use is not becoming more common among young people than it has been in the past, the tragic increase in overdose deaths among this population suggest that drug use is becoming more dangerous than ever before,” Volkow said.

“It is absolutely crucial to educate young people that pills purchased via social media, given to someone by a friend, or obtained from an unknown source may contain deadly fentanyl.”

The data are based on responses collected from 31,438 surveys from students enrolled at 308 public and private schools. The surveys were conducted between February and June 2022.