U.S. Teen Drug, Alcohol Use Remains at Low Levels

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Rates of vaping, drug and alcohol use among American teens plummeted during the pandemic and have remained at relatively low levels ever since, new government statistics show.

“This trend in the reduction of substance use among teenagers is unprecedented,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, who directs the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). “We must continue to investigate factors that have contributed to this lowered risk of substance use to tailor interventions to support the continuation of this trend.”

The new data comes from NIDA’s web-based Monitoring the Future survey of teens, with responses up to June of 2024. The survey tracks the self-reported behaviors of kids in the 8th, 10th and 12th grades nationwide.

As might have been expected, forced out of school and quarantined at home, many teens stopped using drugs and alcohol during the 2020-2021 pandemic years, the data showed.

The good news is that numbers have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.

In fact, use of alcohol and various drugs by American teens has either held steady or dipped slightly, the survey found.

“Kids who were in eighth grade at the start of the pandemic will be graduating from high school this year, and this unique cohort has ushered in the lowest rates of substance use we’ve seen in decades,” Richard Miech, team lead of the Monitoring the Future survey, said in the release.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/child-health/us-teen-drug-alcohol-use-remains-at-low-levels