New federal health data indicate that while past-year marijuana use in the U.S. overall has climbed in recent years, the rise has been “driven by increases…among adults 26 years or older.” In contrast, among younger Americans the rate of cannabis abuse disorder and past-year usage “remained constant between 2021 and 2020.”
In fact, past-year use among people ages 12 to 20 fell to a four-year low in 2024, the data show—even as a growing number of states enact laws legalizing marijuana for people over the age of 21. These results contradict the arguments of prohibitionists who argue that cannabis should be illegal only for adults to discourage youth usage.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) data comes from its release of the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The NSDUH is an annual survey that has been conducted since 1971 and asks Americans ages 12 and over questions on their drug use and mental health.
SAMHSA’s Principal Deputy Associate Secretary Art Kleinschmidt stated in a Monday press release that the annual NSDUH provided timely statistics on substance use, mental health and other issues. Researchers, clinicians and policymakers will find these data extremely valuable. This information can be used to inform their actions to support President Trump’s Make America Health Again vision.
According to the survey, marijuana consumption in the past year has increased among all respondents from 19.0 per cent in 2021 up until 22.3 per cent last year.
Although the SAMHSA release on the report sent out Monday does not highlight the age-related trends, the accompanying data shows that the increase in marijuana usage among Americans aged between 12 and 20 is distinct from any stable or decreasing trends.
By 2024, cannabis consumption among this age group had fallen to a 4-year-low 16.7 per cent.
After a rise of 17.9% in 2021, the rate fell to 18.4% by 2023.
SAMHSA, 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Mental Health
Connecticut, Delaware Maryland Minnesota Missouri New Mexico New York Ohio Rhode Island Virginia and Delaware all plan to legalize cannabis by 2024.
SAMHSA’s accompanying graphic also shows the use of alcohol by age groups.
It shows that young adults, ages 18 to 25, remain most likely to have used marijuana in the past year, at 35 percent—though that rate was lower than at any other point since 2021.
About 1 in 10 young people ages 18 to 25 (10.4 percent) reported past-year use, meanwhile—also lower than at any other time over the four-year period.
SAMHSA, 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Mental Health
SAMHSA warned that, given the increase in marijuana use among adults, it was important to not take for granted trends of stable youth usage.
According to the report, “the increase in past-year illegal drug use and past drug use disorders is largely driven” by marijuana abuse and marijuana-use disorder among those aged 26 or older. The federal report states that “although marijuana use disorders and trends among teenagers and young adults remained constant between 2021-2024, it is vital to understand the rise in adult marijuana users to help inform treatment and prevention activities.”
The new survey also revealed that the use of hallucinogens in the past year increased for all Americans aged 12 or older. This number rose from 2.7% to 3.6% last year.
The use of cocaine in the past year has decreased slightly from 1,7 percent to 1,5 percent. The misuse of prescription opioids also decreased from 3,0 to 2,6 percent.
The percentage of those with a drug-related disorder increased in the same period, going from 8,7 to 9,8 percent. These figures exclude alcohol abuse disorder which dropped from 10,6 to 9,7 percent.
Overall, 16.8 percent of Americans—48.4 million people—reported some sort of substance use disorder in 2024, the NSDUH data show.
SAMHSA stated that when it came to questions about recovery “1,7 millions adults (or 12,2%) felt that they’d ever had an alcohol or drug problem.” SAMHSA said that “74.3% of these adults (or 23.5 millions people) believed they were in recovery.”
SAMHSA, 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Mental Health
In another question, the mode of marijuana consumption was examined. The results showed that the combustion method is the most common, with 73,9 percent of cannabis consumers reporting having smoked within the past 12 months. Nearly half (44.8 percent) reported eating or drinking cannabis products.
The respondents were allowed to select as many answers as they wanted to this question.
The data shows that vaping is more common in younger users of marijuana. In fact, 71.1 percent said they had vaped cannabis within the last year. Of those aged 18 to 25, 52.0% said they’d vaped. And 33.0% among those age 26 and older.
SAMHSA, 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Mental Health
As of 2024 38.0 percent (of cannabis users aged 12+) said they would vape marijuana, while the remaining 62.0 percent stated they would use cannabis without vaping.
SAMHSA’s report from a year earlier on the NSDUH results also looked at trends over a longer period of time. It found that marijuana usage among youths had declined significantly during the decade preceding, when dozens states began to legalize marijuana for medical or adult use.
The percentage of young people aged 12 to 17 who had ever tried marijuana, for example, dropped by 18 percent from 2014—when the first legal recreational cannabis sales in the U.S. launched—to 2023. The past year and the last month use rates of young people declined as well during this time.
NSDUH surveys have been done for years but the methodology has changed, so some historic comparisons are difficult to make. In an email sent last year, a SAMHSA spokeswoman said that the data of recent years such as those for 2023 and 2022, or 2021 should not be compared with prior years. This is due to a number of reasons.
A year earlier, in 2022, NSDUH for the first time asked respondents about their methods of marijuana consumption—including “smoking; vaping; dabbing waxes, shatter, or concentrates; eating or drinking; putting drops, strips, lozenges, or sprays in their mouth or under their tongue; applying lotion, cream, or patches to their skin; taking pills; or some other way.”
In a SAMHSA Webinar earlier this month, a Johns Hopkins University research assistant acknowledged that cannabis use among adults increased when more states became legalized. Youth usage has typically remained the same or decreased.
This is a major concern, but surprisingly this group has remained relatively stable. [for] Both past-year use and everyday usage.”
The study found that the state-licensed stores were more consistent in discouraging young people from buying cannabis than illegal shops. They also verified that buyers’ age and avoided cartoons, as well as products that would appeal to youth.
The study concluded that licensed stores checked IDs before entry into the store and also prior to making a purchase. Comparatively, in unregulated shops, IDs were only checked before store entry 10% of time and ages verified before purchase 48% of time.
In the U.S. research shows that the use of marijuana by teenagers has fallen across all states where the drug is made legal for adults.
A report from the advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), for example, found that youth marijuana use declined in 19 out of 21 states that legalized adult-use marijuana—with teen cannabis consumption down an average of 35 percent in the earliest states to legalize.
This report included data from national and state level youth surveys including the Monitoring the Future Survey (MTF), which is sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The latest version of the MTF, released late last year, found that cannabis use among eighth, 10th and 12 graders is now lower than before the first states started enacting adult-use legalization laws in 2012. In 2024, youth perceptions of cannabis were significantly lower despite the growing adult-use market.
Another survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last year also showed a decline in the proportion of high-school students reporting past-month marijuana use over the past decade, as dozens of states moved to legalize cannabis.
MPP assessed the research at the state-level, including the Washington State Healthy Youth Survey which will be released in April 2020.
That survey showed declines in both lifetime and past-30-day marijuana use in recent years, with striking drops that held steady through 2023. The results also indicated that perceived ease of access to cannabis among underage students has generally fallen since the state enacted legalization for adults in 2012—contrary to fears repeatedly expressed by opponents of the policy change.
In June of last year, meanwhile, the biannual Healthy Kids Colorado Survey found that rates of youth marijuana use in the state declined slightly in 2023—remaining significantly lower than before the state became one of the first in the U.S. to legalize cannabis for adults in 2012.
This study’s findings generally align with previous studies that investigated the relationship between legalized marijuana jurisdictions and youth cannabis usage.
For example, a Canadian government report recently found that daily or near-daily use rates by both adults and youth have held steady over the last six years after the country enacted legalization.
Another U.S. study reported a “significant decrease” in youth marijuana use from 2011 to 2021—a period in which more than a dozen states legalized marijuana for adults—detailing lower rates of both lifetime and past-month use by high-school students nationwide.
Another federal report published last summer concluded that cannabis consumption among minors—defined as people 12 to 20 years of age—fell slightly between 2022 and 2023.
Separately, a research letter published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in April 2024 said there’s no evidence that states’ adoption of laws to legalize and regulate marijuana for adults have led to an increase in youth use of cannabis.
Another JAMA-published study earlier that month that similarly found that neither legalization nor the opening of retail stores led to increases in youth cannabis use.
In 2023, meanwhile, a U.S. health official said that teen marijuana use has not increased “even as state legalization has proliferated across the country.”
Another earlier analysis from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that rates of current and lifetime cannabis use among high school students have continued to drop amid the legalization movement.
A separate NIDA-funded study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2022 also found that state-level cannabis legalization was not associated with increased youth use. This study showed that adolescents who had spent more time in legalization during their teenage years were not more likely or less to use cannabis by the age of 15.
Yet another 2022 study from Michigan State University researchers, published in the journal PLOS One, found that “cannabis retail sales might be followed by the increased occurrence of cannabis onsets for older adults” in legal states, “but not for underage persons who cannot buy cannabis products in a retail outlet.”
The trends were observed despite adult use of marijuana and certain psychedelics reaching “historic highs” in 2022, according to separate 2023 data.
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