Teen drinking is down but marijuana use is up, and more popular, study suggests
Young people may be abusing substances less but teens, especially those with jobs, have increased their use of marijuana, new research suggests.
Vaping also remains popular among teens, according to the findings published this month in the peer-reviewed medical journal Substance Use & Misuse.
A team of researchers looked at data from Monitoring the Future, a survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The data included 536,291 adolescents in 8th, 10th and 12th grade. The data spanned 1991 to 2019.
The researchers wanted to pinpoint the association between how young people spend their time and their use of substances including cigarette smoking, alcohol, cannabis, nicotine vaping, and cannabis vaping.
The researchers took into account factors such as how social the adolescents were, their extracurricular activities, and their job status.
While most substance use decreased over time among all groups, cannabis and vape use increased. Overall, substance use was lowest among young people who weren't as social; those with more active social lives and jobs reported using substances more, the researchers said.
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Weed, alcohol and vaping use in teens
According to a news release about the findings, the researchers also discovered:
27% of participants drank alcohol in the past month
15% reported binge drinking in the past two weeks
15% smoked cigarettes in the past month
13% reported past-month cannabis use
12% reported nicotine vaping
9% reported past-month use of other substances
6% reported cannabis vaping from 2017 onward
The increase in cannabis use could be happening because the risk perception of the drug is steadily dropping, said Dr. Christian Hopfer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who was not involved in this study.
If you ask someone how harmful cannabis is, they'll likely say it's safe and not risky to consume, said Hopfer, who is also the medical director at the Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation in Aurora, Colo. He partially attributes this to cannabis legalization and the drug being used for medicinal purposes.
"I think the main message is cannabis use is going up and everything else is going down," Hopfer told USA TODAY. "It's getting legalized. It's becoming more popular."
What sets this research apart from the rest?
The study has a large amount of data and spans multiple decades, which makes the message from its findings stronger, said the lead author Noah Kreski, a data analyst at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Previous studies have involved smaller samples or fewer years, they said.
"We are really capturing trends that can be applied more generally," Kreski said. "We can really take this as an opportunity to say, 'Hey, talk to your adolescent.'"
And it's important that if parents do speak to their kids about drugs, they come "not from a place of judgment or punishment, but from a place of support and open communication," they said.
The finding of a reduction in cigarette smoking over the past few decades is something to celebrate – and makes sense because cigarette smoking has had one of the biggest pushback campaigns, Kreski said.
"We've had some really impressive programs over the years targeting smoking and drinking specifically," they said. "I think less work has been done in this population for cannabis and vaping. I don't think we've really seen the same push in terms of reducing that."
Substance use has a big social aspect, and young people who vape often use friends' devices, Kreski said.
When asked if they think the increase in cannabis use could have something to do with decriminalization of the drug, Kreski said it's tricky and too early to tell.
Another concern about cannabis is that teens and adults are using more high potency concentrates, which is "very different from the traditional flower product," Hopfer said.
"There are a number of worrisome things out there for kids, fentanyl being the number one, but understanding the effects of these high potency concentrates is also an area where we need more information," he said.
Teen substance abuse study limitations
Hopfer said many studies (this one included), are school-based and ask kids in school about substance use. "It probably is an underestimate of the actual (substance) use because we're missing the kids who have dropped out of school many times or who aren't attending because they're using," he said.
As for substance use in 2020 and 2021, Kreski said it's too early to assess the pandemic's effect on substance use.
"In vaping, the preliminary data is showing that in 2020 and 2021, vaping went down a little bit," Kreski said.
Part of the reason could be because adolescents spent more time at home and it's harder to get away with vaping there, Kreski said.
"We need more time to be able to have those data polished and ready to go," they said.
Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757 – and loves all things horror, witches, Christmas, and food. Follow her on Twitter at @Saleen_Martin or email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Weed, vaping use by teens on the rise, as other substance abuse falls
