By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Author
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen drug use hasn’t rebounded from its drop through the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, in keeping with the outcomes from a big annual nationwide survey launched Tuesday.
About two-thirds of twelfth graders this yr stated they hadn’t used alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes or e-cigarettes within the earlier 30 days. That’s the biggest proportion abstaining because the annual survey began measuring abstinence in 2017.
Amongst tenth graders, 80% stated they hadn’t used any of these substances not too long ago, one other report. Amongst eighth graders, 90% didn’t use any of them, the identical as was reported within the earlier survey.
The one vital improve occurred in nicotine pouches. About 6% of twelfth graders saying they’d used them within the earlier yr, up from about 3% in 2023.
Whether or not that has the makings of a brand new public well being drawback is unclear. The College of Michigan’s Richard Miech, who leads the survey, stated: “It’s hard to know if we’re seeing the start of something, or not.”
The federally funded Monitoring the Future survey has been working since 1975. This yr’s findings are based mostly on responses from about 24,000 college students in grades 8, 10 and 12 in colleges throughout the nation. The survey is “one of the best, if not the best” supply of nationwide information for substance use by teenagers, stated Noah Kreski, a Columbia College researcher who has studied teen drug use.
Early within the pandemic, college students throughout the nation have been informed to not go to colleges and to keep away from events or different gatherings. They have been at dwelling, below mother and father’ supervision. Alcohol and drug use of every kind dropped as a result of experimentation tends to happen with mates, spurred by peer strain, specialists say.
As lockdowns ended, “I think everyone expected at least a partial rebound,” Miech stated.
Even earlier than the pandemic, there have been longstanding declines in teen cigarette smoking, ingesting and use of a number of kinds of medicine. Specialists theorized that youngsters have been staying dwelling and speaking on smartphones quite than hanging out in teams, the place they often tried illicit substances.
