Teen Marijuana Use ‘Remained Stable’ As Legalization Expands, Federal Health Officials Acknowledge

Teen marijuana use “remained stable” this year even as more states have
enacted legalization, according to an annual federally funded survey

The Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey—supported by the National Institute
on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and conducted every year for decades by the University
of Michigan—examines substance use trends among 8th, 10th and 12th grade
students. And the latest results add to a large body of evidence
contradicting prohibitionist claims that state-level legalization would
drive increases in underage cannabis usage.

The rate of past-year marijuana use for 12th graders was 25.7 percent,
which is relatively consistent with recent years but at its lowest level
since 1992. It was the same case with 10th graders, 15.6 percent of whom
used marijuana in the last year. Among 8th grade students, 7.6 percent
reported past-year cannabis consumption.

For past-month cannabis use, that rate was 17.1 percent for 12th graders, a
slight uptick from the prior year but significantly lower than its record
high of 37.1 percent in 1978 before any state had legalized cannabis for
adult or medical use. For 10th grade students, the rate this past year was
9.4 percent, and for 8th grade it was 4 percent—consistent with recent
years.

“We are encouraged that adolescent drug use remains relatively low and that
so many teens choose not to use drugs at all,” NIDA Director Nora Volkow
said in a press release. “It is critical to continue to monitor these
trends closely to understand how we can continue to support teens in making
healthy choices and target interventions where and when they are needed.”

The survey also found that students who reported past-month abstention from
marijuana , alcohol and nicotine were “stable for all grades” (66 percent
for 12th grade, 82 percent for 10th grade and 91 percent for 8th grade).

The survey also asked about the use of hemp-based cannabinoid products,
including intoxicating compounds such as delta-8 THC. It found that 9
percent of 12th graders, 6 percent of 10th graders and 2 percent of 8th
graders used products in that category in the past year.

This year’s MTF survey was based on data from 23,726 student surveys
submitted from 270 public and private schools from February-June 2025.

To reform advocates, the results of the survey reinforce the idea that
creating a regulatory framework for cannabis where licensed retailers must
check IDs and implement other security mechanisms to prevent unlawful
diversion is a far more effective policy than prohibition, with illicit
suppliers whose products may be untested and where age-gating isn’t a
strictly enforced regulation.

To that point, a separate federally funded study out of Canada that was
released last month found that that youth marijuana use rates actually
declined after the country legalized cannabis.

The study was released about three months after German officials released a
separate report on their country’s experience with legalizing marijuana
nationwide.

Back in July, federal health data also indicated 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.” As for younger
Americans, rates of both past-year use and cannabis use disorder, by
contrast, “remained stable among adolescents and young adults between 2021
and 2024.”

Across the U.S., research suggests that marijuana use by young people has
generally fallen in states that legalize the drug 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. The report cited
data from a series of national and state-level youth surveys, including the
annual MTF survey.

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.

At the state level, MPP’s assessment looked at research such as the
Washington State Healthy Youth Survey that was released in April 2024.

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.

The findings broadly track with other past surveys that have investigated
the relationship between jurisdictions that have legalized marijuana and
youth cannabis use.

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. The study
demonstrated that “youth who spent more of their adolescence under
legalization were no more or less likely to have used cannabis at age 15
years than adolescents who spent little or no time under legalization.”

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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Federal Health Officials Acknowledge appeared first on Marijuana Moment.