The use of narcotics among teenagers reached an all-time low this year, according to new survey data from the National Institutes of Health published Tuesday, marking a key development in the opioid crisis in the United States.
According to the annual Monitoring the Future Survey, conducted by the University of Michigan and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, only 0.6% of high school seniors reported using narcotics other than heroin in the past year. That’s down from the all-time high of 9.5% of 12th graders in 2004.
The Monitoring the Future Survey has collected data on adolescent drug use by surveying 8th, 10th, and 12th-grade students across the country since 1975.
Use of narcotics other than heroin appeared to increase dramatically between 2001 and 2002 because of a change in the wording of the question on the survey to include examples that fit in the drug category, such as Vicodin, OxyCotin, and Percocet.
Heroin use, its own category in the survey, remained below 0.2% of high school seniors in the past year, decreasing steadily since its peak at 1.5% in 2000.
Illicit drug use for adolescents in 8th, 10th, and 12th grade continued its post-pandemic downward trend for nearly all drug categories, which experts attribute in part to school closures in 2020 and 2021.
“Kids who were in eighth grade at the start of the pandemic will be graduating from high school this year, and this unique cohort has ushered in the lowest rates of substance use we’ve seen in decades,” Richard Miech, a sociologist at the University of Michigan and leader of the NIDA-funded study, said in a press release.
This overall decline includes an approximately 4 percentage point decrease in the use of alcohol for 10th and 12th graders to 26% and 42%, respectively, as well as a 3 percentage point decrease in cannabis use among seniors to about 26%.
Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the NIDA, called the general downward trend “unprecedented” in the past 50 years that the institute has monitored illicit drug use among teenagers.
“We must continue to investigate factors that have contributed to this lowered risk of substance use to tailor interventions to support the continuation of this trend,” said Volkow.
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According to the University of Michigan’s long-term study of adult drug use, narcotics other than heroin have continued to decline among adults over 18 as well.
In 2023, only 1.3% of adults between 19 and 30 used narcotics, compared to its peak of slightly more than 9% in 2010. Narcotic use also declined for adults 35 to 50, from more than 5% in 2016 to 2.7% in 2023.