Teen drug use habits are changing, for the good. With caveats.

Dr. Nora Volkow, who directs the National Institutes of Drug Abuse, would like the public to know that things are getting better. Mostly.

Historically speaking, it's not a bad time to be a teenager's liver. Or the lungs.

Regular alcohol, tobacco and drug use among high school students follows a long downward trend.

In 2023, 46% of older people reported having had a drink in the year preceding their interview; That's a precipitous drop from 88 percent in 1979, when the behavior peaked, according to the annual Monitoring the Future survey, a closely watched national poll of youth substance use. A similar downward trend was observed among eighth and tenth graders, as well as in these three age groups, regarding smoking. In 2023, only 15% of older adults reported smoking a cigarette in their lifetime, compared to 76% in 1977.

Illicit drug use among adolescents increased. has remained low and fairly stable over the past three decades, with some notable declines during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2023, 29% of high school students reported consuming of marijuana in the previous year, down from 37% in 2017 and a peak of 51% in 1979.

There are some caveats to this good news. The first is that overdose deaths among adolescents have increased sharply, with fentanyl-related deaths doubling between 2019 and 2020 and remaining at that level in subsequent years.

Dr. Nora Volkow has dedicated her career to the study of drug and alcohol use. She has served as director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 2003. She sat down with The New York Times to discuss changing trends and the reasons behind changing trends in drug use.< /p>

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