No Change in Adolescent Drug, Alcohol Use During Pandemic

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

The coronavirus pandemic has posed significant challenges for many, but it did not appear to drive U.S. preteens and young teens to drugs.

Repeated surveys of more than 7,800 10- to 14-year-olds between September 2019 and August 2020 found the overall rate of drug use remained stable, according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). What did change was their drugs of choice: Alcohol use fell, while the use of prescription drugs and tobacco products rose.

The new study piggybacked on an ongoing, long-term U.S. study of brain development and child health known as the ABCD Study, short for Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development. It had already been following this age group.

Researchers used data from that study to make direct comparisons between substance use before and during the pandemic, Volkow said.

Older teens’ substance use also held steady or even declined, according to several earlier studies. To find out what was happening with younger teens and preteens, researchers surveyed them and their families in May, June, and August of last year.

Their use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, other drugs, and misuse of prescription drugs was examined. The survey also gathered information on general and pandemic-related factors that could influence substance use.

Eight percent of the young people reported substance use in the past month, most often alcohol (3.4%) or tobacco (3.6%). About 1.1% used marijuana, inhalants, or other drugs or misused prescription drugs. Most used one substance one or two days per month.

Researchers were able to link pre-pandemic assessments with these new surveys for 1,079 respondents. For this subsample, the overall rate of drug use did not increase significantly from before the pandemic. But shifts were found in the types of substances used.

About 1.9% of young people reported using alcohol prior to the pandemic, compared to 0.7% early in the pandemic. They reported no tobacco use or prescription drug misuse before the pandemic, compared to 1.5% and 0.7%, respectively, during the first pandemic survey.

The findings were published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/b-8-24-no-change-among-10-to-14-year-olds-in-drug-alcohol-use-during-pandemic-2654708948.html