Marijuana use among young people in U.S. at record high, study says

Young people used marijuana and some hallucinogens at record levels last year, according to a new report funded by the National Institutes of Health, as recreational cannabis became legal in more states and as attitudes toward other drugs continue to shift.

Nearly 43 percent of young people said they had used marijuana in the past 12 months, up from 29 percent in 2011 and nearly 34 percent in 2016, according to the Monitoring the Future study by the University of Michigan, which surveyed nearly 5,000 young adults between 19 and 30 years old.

More than 28 percent of young people said they had used marijuana in the past month, and more than 1 in 10 were “daily” consumers, using marijuana 20 times or more in the past 30 days, according to the report. Although the rates were not a “significant” jump from 2020, the report said, they were the “highest levels ever recorded since the indices were first available in 1988.”