Teen Substance Use Continued to Drop in 2024: Study

Teen substance use continued to decline in 2024, building on and extending the historically large drops that occurred during the beginning of the pandemic, according to the annual Monitoring the Future survey. The survey is based on responses from about 24,000 students in grades 8, 10 and 12 across the country.

About two-thirds of 12th graders this year said they had not used alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes or e-cigarettes in the past month, AP reports. This represents the largest proportion of teens abstaining since the survey began measuring abstinence in 2017.

The survey found 80% of 10th graders said they had not used any of those substances recently – another record – while 90% of 8th graders did not use any of them, the same as reported in the previous survey.

There was an increase in use of nicotine pouches among 12th graders, from 3% reporting use in the past year in 2023 to 6% in 2024.

“I expected adolescent drug use would rebound at least partially after the large declines that took place during the pandemic onset in 2020, which were among the largest ever recorded,” Richard Miech, team lead of the Monitoring the Future study, said in a news release. “Many experts in the field had anticipated that drug use would resurge as the pandemic receded and social distancing restrictions were lifted. As it turns out, the declines have not only lasted but have dropped further.”