The numbers of American 19-30-year-olds using marijuana and hallucinogens are at their highest rates ever since the research first began in 1988, while binge drinking had also shot up and marijuana vaping had doubled between 2017 and 20121, found a US National Institutes of Health survey.
The latest data, from the report Monitoring the Future Panel Study, showed that the number of young adults who said in 2021 that they had used marijuana in the past year (43%), the past month (29%) or daily (11%), were the highest levels ever recorded.
Daily use, defined in the study as 20 or more times in 30 days, was up from 8% in 2016.
“Young adults are in a critical life stage and honing their ability to make informed choices,” said Dr Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a NIH subsidiary. “Understanding how substance use can impact the formative choices in young adulthood is critical to help position the new generations for success.”
The latest data, collected from April 2021 to October 2021, also recorded that the number of young adults who had used a marijuana vape in the past month reached pre-pandemic levels, after dropping off in 2020, doubling from 6% in 2017 to 12% in 2021, reports NPR.
Hallucinogen use
The percentages of young people who had used hallucinogens in the past year had been fairly consistent for the past few decades, until 2020, when rates of use began spiking.
In 2021, 8% of young adults said they have used a hallucinogen in the past year, the highest proportion since the survey began in 1988.
Reported hallucinogens included LSD, mescaline, peyote, shrooms, PCP and MDMA (aka molly or ecstasy).
Only MDMA use declined had decreased, from 5% in 2020 to 3% in 2021.
Other substances
Alcohol was the most popular substance in the study, though rates of daily drinking have decreased in the past 10 years.
But binge drinking, defined as having five or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks, was back on the rise after a historic low in 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. And high-intensity drinking – having 10 or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks – has been consistently rising in the past decade, and in 2021, was at its highest level since 2005.
Meanwhile, nicotine vaping is still on the rise among young people. Its prevalence almost tripled from 6% in 2017, when it was first measured, to 16% in 2021, said the report.
The use of nicotine cigarettes and opioids has been on the decline in the past decade.
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