NEW YORK — Teen drug use has not rebounded after plummeting in the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a major annual national survey released Tuesday.
About two-thirds of this year’s 12th graders said they had not used alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes or e-cigarettes in the past 30 days. This is the largest share of abstinence since the annual survey began measuring abstinence in 2017.
Among 10th graders, 80% said they had not recently used any of these substances, another record. Among 8th graders, 90% did not use any of them, as in the previous survey.
The only significant increase was in nicotine pouches. About 6% of 12th graders said they used them in the past year, up from about 3% in 2023.
Whether this has the makings of a new health care problem is unclear. Richard Michig of the University of Michigan, who is leading the survey, said: “It’s hard to know if we’re seeing the beginning of something or not.”
The federally funded Monitoring the Future survey has been conducted since 1975. This year’s results are based on responses from about 24,000 students in grades 8, 10 and 12 at schools across the country. The survey is “one of the best, if not the best” source of national data on teen substance use, said Noah Kresky, a Columbia University researcher who has studied teen drug use.
At the start of the pandemic, students across the country were told not to go to school and to avoid parties and other gatherings. They were at home, under the supervision of their parents. Alcohol and drug use of all kinds is down because experiments are done with friends under peer pressure, experts say.
When the lockdown ended, “I think everyone expected at least a partial recovery,” Meech said.
Even before the pandemic, there was a long-term decline in teenage smoking, alcohol use and several types of drugs. Experts suggested that children are sitting at home and talking on their smartphones, rather than hanging out in groups where they sometimes try illegal substances.
But marijuana use didn’t drop until the pandemic. And vaping was on the rise. Only during the pandemic did these two also see a steady decline.
Some experts question whether pandemic lockdowns have had a deeper impact.
Mich noted that many teens who experiment with e-cigarettes or drugs start in 9th grade, sometimes because older teens are doing it. But kids who were in 9th grade during the lockdown never picked up the habit and didn’t have the opportunity to become negative influences on their younger classmates, he said.
“The pandemic has stopped the cycle of new kids coming in and getting into drugs,” Meech said.
Mental health can also be a factor. Reports of depression and anxiety in children have increased since the start of the pandemic. Depression is often associated with substance use, but some people with depression and anxiety are very cautious about using drugs, said Dr. Duncan Clark, a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh who studies substance use in children.
“Some teenagers are anxious about the effects of substances. They may also be socially excluded and have fewer opportunities to use drugs, Clark said. – This is a complicated relationship.”
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