NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� Teen drug use hasn't rebounded from its drop during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the results from a large annual national survey released Tuesday.
About two-thirds of 12th graders this year said they hadn鈥檛 used alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes or e-cigarettes in the previous 30 days. That鈥檚 the largest proportion abstaining since the annual survey started measuring abstinence in 2017.
Among 10th graders, 80% said they hadn鈥檛 used any of those substances recently, another record. Among 8th graders, 90% didn鈥檛 use any of them, the same as was reported in the previous survey.
The only significant increase occurred in . About 6% of 12th graders saying they鈥檇 used them in the previous year, up from about 3% in 2023.
Whether that has the makings of a new public health problem is unclear. The University of Michigan鈥檚 Richard Miech, who leads the survey, said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to know if we鈥檙e seeing the start of something, or not."
The federally funded Monitoring the Future survey has been operating since 1975. This year鈥檚 are based on responses from about 24,000 students in grades 8, 10 and 12 in schools across the country. The survey is 鈥渙ne of the best, if not the best" source of national data for substance use by teens, said Noah Kreski, a Columbia University researcher who has studied teen drug use.
Early in the pandemic, students across the country were told not to go to schools and to avoid parties or other gatherings. They were at home, under parents' supervision. Alcohol and drug use of all kinds dropped because experimentation tends to occur with friends, spurred by peer pressure, experts say.
As lockdowns ended, 鈥淚 think everyone expected at least a partial rebound,鈥� Miech said.
Even before the pandemic, there were longstanding declines in teen cigarette smoking, drinking and use of several types of drugs. Experts theorized that kids were staying home and communicating on smartphones rather than hanging out in groups, where they sometimes tried illicit substances.
But marijuana use wasn't falling before the pandemic. And vaping was on . It was only during the pandemic that those two saw enduring declines, too.
Some experts wonder if the pandemic lockdowns had a deeper influence.
Miech noted that a lot of teens who experiment with e-cigarettes or drugs start in the 9th grade, sometimes because older adolescents are doing it. But the kids who were 9th graders during the lockdowns never picked up the habit, and never had the opportunity to turn into negative influencers of their younger classmates, he said.
鈥淭he pandemic stopped the cycle of new kids coming in and being recruited to drug use,鈥� Miech said.
Mental health may also be a factor. There were increased of depression and anxiety in kids after the pandemic began. Depression is often associated with substance use, but some people with depression and anxiety are very wary of messing with drugs, said Dr. Duncan Clark, a University of Pittsburgh psychiatrist who researches substance use in kids.
鈥淪ome teens with anxiety are worried about the effects of substances. They may also be socially inhibited and have less opportunity to use drugs," Clark said. "It's a complicated relationship.鈥�
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute鈥檚 Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Mike Stobbe, The Associated Press
