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Marijuana Use Among Teens Continues Falling

Paul Ausick

Published: December 16, 2016 7:25 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 4:43 pm

One of the knocks on legal marijuana, whether for medicinal or recreational use, is that legalization sends a message to teens that using the drug is acceptable. If that is true, then the message is not getting through.

The University of Michigan last week released its 42nd annual “Monitoring the Future” study on drug use among U.S. teens. The study has surveyed some 45,000 students in 380 public and private secondary schools annually since 1978.

In this year’s study, self-reported annual marijuana use dropped “sharply” among eighth graders to 9.4%, by a statistically insignificant amount to 24% of 10th graders and remained steady at 36% of 12th graders.

Daily or near-daily use dropped to 0.7% among eighth graders and 2.5% among 10th graders. Daily use among 12th graders remained around 6%, about where it has been since 2010.

Another knock on legalized marijuana is that it is a gateway drug, leading to increased use of more dangerous substances. That does not seem to be borne out by the data.

Among teens, the use of prescription amphetamines have dropped from late 1990’s highs of 9% for eighth graders, 12% for 10th graders and 11% for 12 graders to 3.5%, 6.1% and 6.7%, respectively.

Among 12 graders (the only group for which this data is reported), the use of prescription narcotic drugs (including opioids) has dropped from 9.5% in 2004 to 4.8%.

Annual heroin use among eighth graders has fallen from 1.6% in 1996 to 0.3%, and among 12th graders heroin use has dropped from 1.5% in 2000 to 0.3% in 2016. Principal investigator Lloyd Johnston noted:

So, among secondary school students, at least, there is no evidence of heroin coming to substitute for prescription narcotic drugs—a dynamic that apparently has occurred in other populations. Certainly there will be individual cases where that happens, but overall the use of heroin and prescription narcotics both have declined appreciably and largely in parallel among secondary school students.

The general conclusion of the study is that teen use of illicit drugs other than marijuana has reached a new low, and the same is true for teen use of alcohol. While the use of marijuana among 12th graders remains high, the trends are headed “in the right direction.”

The full study and other materials are available at the Monitoring the Future website.