new era
“Children who were in eighth grade at the beginning of the pandemic will be graduating from high school this year, and this unique population has driven drug use rates to their lowest levels in decades,” Meehy said.
The rate of past 12-month alcohol use among 8th graders will be 12.9% in 2024, on par with the record low in 2023. For 10th graders, this rate dropped significantly from 30.6 percent to 26.1 percent in 2023, and for 12th grade students from 45.7 percent to 41.7 percent, both record lows.
For nicotine e-cigarettes, smoking prevalence among 10th graders decreased from 17.5 percent to 15.4 percent, but remained at low levels among 8th and 12th graders. For marijuana, use remained low in 8th and 10th graders, but decreased significantly in 12th grade (29% to 25.8%). All three grades are at their lowest levels since 1990.
The percentage of eighth-graders who abstain from alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine has reached 90%, up from 87% in 2017, the first time it was measured. This percentage was 80% for 10th graders (69% in 2017) and 67% for 12th graders (53% in 2017).
“The trend toward decreasing drug use among teenagers is unprecedented“We must continue to investigate the factors that contribute to reduced risk of substance use in order to tailor interventions to help continue this trend,” said Nora Volkow, director of the NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). No,” he said.
