Ann Arbor Times

Adolescent drug use in the United States has continued to decline in 2024, extending the significant decreases first observed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This trend defies earlier expectations that youth substance use would rebound as pandemic-related restrictions eased.

Richard Miech, leading the Monitoring the Future study at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, expressed surprise at these findings. "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," Miech stated. He noted that many experts had anticipated a resurgence in drug use with the lifting of social distancing measures. However, contrary to these predictions, adolescent drug use has continued to decrease.

The Monitoring the Future study annually surveys students in eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades across the nation. In 2024, record levels of abstention from drugs were reported among students. Abstention is defined as no past 30-day use of alcohol, marijuana, nicotine cigarettes or e-cigarettes. Specifically, abstention rates reached 67% among twelfth graders (up from 53% in 2017), 80% among tenth graders (up from 69% in 2017), and 90% among eighth graders (up from 87% in 2017). The increase in abstention rates from 2023 to 2024 was statistically significant for both twelfth and tenth graders.

The reductions were evident across alcohol consumption, marijuana usage, and nicotine vaping—three common forms of substance use by adolescents.

Miech suggests that these trends prompt important policy and research considerations. A delay in initiating drug use during adolescence might lower lifetime substance use trajectories. "Such a delay," Miech explains, "may prevent youth from associating with drug-using peer groups that encourage continued use and may forestall biological processes that contribute to the development of addiction."

The Monitoring the Future study is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse under the National Institutes of Health and conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan.