New Data On Teenage Substance Use Is Here, And It's Not What You Expect
If you’re the parent of a teen, you may worry that your child will be faced with many opportunities to drink before they’re of age. You might even wonder, since it seems inevitable, if you should offer your adolescent their first drink in your home.
On the one hand, you’re right to be concerned. Underage drinking is associated with a number of dangerous behaviors, such as car accidents, and alcohol in large quantities can cause serious illness or even death.
But if you’re imagining today’s teens at the same parties and parking lots that may have marked your own youth ― or the ones you’re used to seeing portrayed on TV ― you may be less tapped into their reality than you think. In fact, a new report shows that teen substance use is declining.
What Substance Use Looks Like Among Teens Today
Findings from the 2023 Monitoring the Future survey, an NIH-funded study that has been tracking teen substance abuse in the U.S. for almost 50 years, show that teen alcohol use continues to decrease, a consistent trend since the survey began collecting data in the 1970s.
In 1978, 93% of 12th graders reported ever having used alcohol. This number was down to 80% in 1993, and this year hit a new low of 53%.
The 2023 survey collected data from 7,584 12th graders in 83 schools; 8,494 10th grade students in 76 schools; and 6,240 eighth grade students in a different 76 schools. Schools were selected to provide “a representative cross section” of teens in the contiguous 48 states.
Here are some of the 2023 survey’s noteworthy findings.
The number of abstainers (students who had never used nicotine, alcohol or drugs; a number which the survey has been tracking since 2017) reached a high of 37.5% for 12th graders. For 10th graders, 54.4% reported total abstention from substance use. For eighth graders, this number was 70%.
The number of students who reported drinking alcohol over the past 12 months was 45.7% for 12th graders, 30.6% for 10th graders and 15.1% for eighth graders. All of these numbers have been on a steady downward trend for decades.
Following a small uptick in 2020, the number of students who reported having been drunk in the past 12th months also hit record lows: 25.1% for 12th graders, 13.1% for 10th graders and 4.6% for eighth graders.
The rate at which teens in all three grades disapprove of binge drinking has been, and remains, high.
“We see that past year use in eighth and 10th graders is stable from 2022 and down in 12th graders from 2022 to 2023,” Dr. Maria Rahmandar, medical director of the substance use and prevention program at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, told HuffPost. Rahmandar, who was not affiliated with the study, noted that these are encouraging trends.
These declining rates of use in high school seniors “are significant in that they demonstrate the potential lifetime reduction in substance use by delaying the onset of alcohol and other substances,” said Leslie Kimball, executive director of Responsibility.org, an organization funded by alcohol manufacturers dedicated to the prevention of underage drinking and drunk driving.
Kimball credits the steady decline in teens’ alcohol use to “adults who care and who want to keep kids safe.”
“Conversations between parents and kids have increased by over 30% over the past 20 years and in that same period, underage drinking declined by over 50%,” she said.
Research shows that a person’s risk of developing an alcohol use disorder goes up significantly the earlier they begin drinking.
This can be tricky for parents to understand. We may have seen a majority of our own peers using alcohol before high school graduation, or maybe know someone who went on to develop alcohol use disorder. Yet, while the majority of teens who try alcohol don’t develop a problem, the majority of people with a drinking problem started using as teens. The best way to reduce a young person’s risk is to delay the onset of use.
The Impact Of The Pandemic On Teen Substance Use
We know that social distancing measures during the pandemic took a heavy toll on kids’ mental health. But at the same time, the pandemic appeared to cut short some of their substance use. The survey found a significant decrease in the use of almost all substances between 2021 and 2022.
“Social distancing early in the pandemic may have contributed to the initial decline in substance use among adolescents, as teens tend to use and share alcohol/drugs with friends,” Rahmandar said.
When schools reopened, she continued, “we were concerned that substance use would increase back to pre-pandemic levels, especially as we were experiencing an ongoing mental health crisis that unfortunately did not improve with the return from social distancing.”
The fact that substance use has not increased is encouraging, she said, “but it is hard to pinpoint exactly why.”
Dr. Wilson Compton, executive director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, concurred, telling HuffPost that the absence of a post-pandemic uptick was a bit of a surprise.
“Substance use in general is a notoriously social activity,” he said, which accounted for the decrease during social distancing.
However, “kids are back in school and they’re back visiting with their friends and they’re back online in the ways they were before — and yet we’re still seeing some overall lower levels than we saw across most substances prior to the pandemic.”
While this is promising, Compton noted that “rates are still unacceptably high for any substance use, and so even when we are pleased with the direction of the trends, we always have a long way to go.”
Compton also attributed this success to the hard work of community groups to educate people about substance use, as well as the “tremendous success story in almost eliminating smoking.” Tobacco use, he noted, had previously been a common risk factor for the use of alcohol and other substances.
The Message Parents Should Communicate To Their Children
One thing parents can do to help prevent their children from using alcohol or other substances is to talk to them about some of this data. Specifically, kids should understand that most of their peers are not drinking alcohol or using other substances.
For years, many teens (and their parents) have assumed “everybody’s doing it.” But this was much more true in the ’70s, ‘80s and ’90s than it is today. Less than half of 12th graders have had alcohol in the past 12 months at all, and even fewer have drank in the last 30 days. This is not everybody, and neither is it every weekend.
Second, parents should explain to their teens that alcohol and other substances have an outsized impact on their developing brains.
“Parents need to reinforce to their children and teens that, unlike adults, their brains and bodies are still growing,” Kimball said.
Kids should know that the earlier they begin drinking, the more likely they are to develop alcohol use disorder.
Instead of simply telling kids not to drink, Kimball recommended that parents explain the “why.” In addition to long-term risks, there are many immediate risks to drinking and substance use, particularly when combined with driving.
“Parents need to feel comfortable to talking to their kids about why children and teens should say ‘no’ to alcohol and can use real-life examples,” Kimball said. Whether they see a story on the news or an example at an event or party, parents can use the opportunity to explain to their kids why underage drinking is dangerous.
In spite of the promising downward trend in alcohol and drug use, there are some issues specific to today’s teens that parents should learn about and then discuss with their children.
Compton mentioned the danger of drugs like fentanyl, which pose a high risk of death from one-time use. “The risks of the substances that they may be exposed to right now are so extraordinary,” he said.
“It’s always been true that if you use some substances even one time that it can be fatal, but the likelihood of that is increased so much because of fentanyl,” he continued.Kids need to understand this possibility.
In addition, older teens — certainly by the time they reach 12th grade — should know the signs of an overdose (such as changes in a person’s breathing) and to call immediately for help. Compton noted that in the case of an opioid overdose, you have only about four minutes to take action.
Another generational difference is the changing legal status of cannabis and its wider availability. While rates of cannabis use among teens have not gone down as dramatically as those of alcohol, the fact that even with increased availability rates have not gone up can be seen as a positive.
“That seems like pretty good news,” Compton said. “Many of us thought ... we would see youth use of cannabis increasing and we haven’t seen that.”
At the same time, he noted that the variety of cannabis products on the market has changed dramatically. “Cannabis is different than it was even 10 or 15 years ago,” he said, and we don’t yet know how newer, more potent products may impact young users.
Parents should discuss with their kids, for example, a newer product on the market known as Delta-8 THC. “It’s not regulated as a controlled substance because it is derived from the hemp version of the plant,” he explained.
It may then be easier for kids to acquire, and they might think of it as less harmful than other cannabis products, though it can still produce a high. Compton noted that 11.4% of 12th graders in the survey had used it, so it’s definitely something for parents to be aware of.
Teens, Compton continued, “are at the forefront of new trends sometimes.” This makes it all the more crucial to have open and honest communication with your kids about what’s going on in their lives and what their friends are doing.
“A parent’s conversation about alcohol isn’t a one-time event — it should be ongoing and continue as a kid grows and their observations about the world expand,” Kimball said.
