December 14, 2023
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Key takeaways:
- Among high school seniors, 62.6% reported not using any alcohol, cannabis or nicotine in the last 30 days.
- Rates of lifetime abstention from alcohol, cannabis and nicotine increased among 10th and 12th graders.
More than 60% of 12th graders who responded to a yearly survey of junior high and high school students reported not using alcohol, cannabis or nicotine in the past 30 days — the highest level of abstention in the survey’s history.
Rates of lifetime abstention — no history of use of any of the substances — significantly increased in 2023 among 10th and 12th graders and were at or near the highest levels ever recorded by Monitoring the Future, a survey conducted yearly by the University of Michigan and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Data derived from Miech RA, et al. Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975–2023: Secondary School Students. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan.
This year’s report summarized substance use behaviors based on 22,318 surveys collected from students at 235 public and private schools in the United States.
According to the responded, abstention from marijuana, alcohol and nicotine use increased for 12th grade students, with 62.6% reporting not using any of these substances in the last 30 days. That percentage remained stable for 8th graders at 87% and 10th graders at 76.9%.
Rates of lifetime abstention were 37.5% for 12th graders, 54.4% for 10th graders and 70% for 8th graders. Increases in these categories “were driven by decreases in nicotine vaping and alcohol use,” the report says. There was not much change in lifetime use of cannabis from 2023 to 2023.
“Research has shown that delaying the start of substance use among young people, even by 1 year, can decrease substance use for the rest of their lives,” Nora Volkow, MD, director of the NIDA, said in a press release. “We may be seeing this play out in real time.”
Alcohol use remained stable in 8th and 10th graders, and in 12th graders fell from 51.9% last year to 45.7% this year. Use of nicotine vaping remained stable for 8th grade students, but did decline from 20.5% to 17.6% among 10th grade students and 27.3% to 23.2% among 12th grade students. Cannabis use and cannabis vaping remained stable for all three grades.
For the first time, this year’s survey measured the use of delta-8 THC, a psychoactive substance found in the Cannabis sativa plant. According to the survey, 11.4% of 12th graders reported using it in the last year.
“For 49 consecutive years, the Monitoring the Future survey has closely monitored shifts in substance use trends among young people, helping to identify and track emerging trends with public health relevance,” Richard A. Miech, PhD, team lead of the study, said in the release. “This year’s addition of a measure to assess use of delta-8 is one example of this, and we were surprised to see use levels this high among 12th graders. Moving forward, as policies and access to this drug change, it will be important to continue to monitor use of this drug among teens.”
Volkow called the overall downward trend “reassuring.”
“It remains crucial to continue to educate young people about the risks and harms of substance use in an open and honest way, emphasizing that illicit pills and other substances may contain deadly fentanyl,” Volkow said.
References:
Miech RA D, et al. Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975–2023: Secondary School Students. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan. https://monitoringthefuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mtf2023.pdf.
Reported drug use among adolescents continued to hold below pre-pandemic levels in 2023. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/reported-drug-use-among-adolescents-continued-hold-below-pre-pandemic-levels-2023. Published Dec. 13, 2023. Accessed Dec. 13, 2023.
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