Teen Vaping Up – Drinking, Smoking, and Opioid Abuse Down

An annual survey that tracks drug use by American teenagers found that smoking, binge drinking, and abuse of prescription drugs is way down. But teen vaping is up—and not just a little bit. Vaping is way up.

The study, conducted by the University of Michigan, asked roughly 45,000 American teens about their use of substances over the past 30 days, and drug use is down in almost every category. But the number of teens who vape nicotine and marijuana has skyrocketed over the past year, showing some of the largest jumps of any category since the survey began in the 1970s.

The number of high school seniors who vape nicotine has almost doubled from just 11 percent last year to 21 percent this year. Marijuana vaping was also up from last year in that same age group, with 7.5 percent of 12th graders reporting that they’ve vaped weed in the past 30 days, up from 4.9 percent last year. High school seniors were also the most likely to use marijuana generally, with roughly 1 in 4 reporting that they’d smoked weed at least once in the past year. About 1 in 17 high school seniors report using marijuana daily.

Source: Teen Vaping Skyrockets While Youth Binge Drinking, Smoking, and Opioid Abuse Continue to Fall