An analysis of risk-behavior questionnaires among high school students found that between 2011 and 2021, the proportion of teens reporting current marijuana use fell from 23.1 percent to 15.8 percent. In addition, the proportion of those who first tried marijuana before age 13 also declined. The report is published in the journal Pediatric Reports.
Currently, 38 U.S. states have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, and 16 states have legalized recreational marijuana use. However, marijuana is an illegal substance under federal law, and research shows that it is one of the most commonly used illegal substances among U.S. teens. Therefore, monitoring trends in marijuana use among U.S. teens remains an important public health issue, given the growing number of states that are legalizing recreational marijuana.
To understand recent changes in marijuana use among teens, a team led by Panagiota Kitsantas of Florida Atlantic University analyzed 10 years of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Risk Behavior Survey of high school seniors (grades 9 through 12). The survey tracks health behaviors in a large sample of U.S. teens that contribute to leading preventable causes of premature illness and death.
The overall study sample included 88,183 high school seniors in the United States and included data from 2011 to 2021. The analysis found that the percentage of teens who had ever used marijuana decreased significantly from 39.9 percent in 2011 to 27.8 percent in 2021 (p < 0.05). Similarly, the percentage of teens reporting current marijuana use decreased from 23.1 percent to 15.8 percent (p < 0.05). The percentage of teens who had tried marijuana before age 13 also decreased over the same period, from 8.1 percent in 2011 to 4.9 percent in 2021 (p < 0.05). Marijuana use increased from 2011 to 2013, then declined from 2015 to 2017, peaked slightly in 2019, and declined rapidly in 2021. Marijuana use decreased across all racial and ethnic groups from 2011 to 2021. However, in 2021, a higher proportion of Black teens reported using marijuana (20.5 percent) than white (14.8 percent), Hispanic (16.7 percent), and Asian (5.1 percent) teens. Girls were also more likely to use marijuana in 2021 than boys. Despite the large sample size and representativeness of the study, the researchers acknowledge a significant limitation of their work. Self-reported data may be significantly biased by social desirability and response biases. The cross-sectional design also limits the ability to establish causality between observed trends and influencing factors. Additionally, the study lacks detailed contextual information about marijuana use, such as frequency and potency, and does not account for differences in legalization across states, which may affect the responses. We’ve previously reported that cannabis use during adolescence disrupts prefrontal cortex development.