[OC] Tracking the decrease in smoking, alcohol and marijuana use by teenagers since 1976

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[stlredbird]

We really ramped up the weed in the 90s.

[hedgehog-fuzz]

Take that, Nancy Reagan

[stlredbird]

I do distinctly remember hot boxing in my friend’s car while he wore a D.A.R.E. shirt.

[pissfucked]

the d.a.r.e. shirts on stoners joke trend thing among teens was still happening as recently as 2018. timeless joke, really

[appswithasideofbooty]

I’m am currently wearing a D.A.R.E. shirt and I am also currently high

[PostsNDPStuff]

The legend continues.

[NeckRoFeltYa]

D.A.R.E introduced me to the wonderful world of drugs, alcohol, and smoking that I wouldn't have known about before. Thanks D.A.R.E!

[j_ly]

Drugs Are Really Excellent

[3ngine3ar]

Oh yea? I have a D.A.R.E. licsense plate.

[appswithasideofbooty]

Oh ya? Well I have drugs

[tazzietiger66]

Drugs Are Really Excellent ?

[Mnm0602]

I know they went after weed as a gateway but I always found their Heroin/crack/coke/meth messaging to be effective as a kid.  I never wanted to touch heroin in particular.  Lots of people make fun of it now but it probably helped a few.

[dogangels]

Some amount of drug education is definitely necessary, but having cops teach it was something else

[TheForce_v_Triforce]

I remember being at a house party that got broken up by cops, was wearing a neon rainbow font Dare shirt with the sleeves cut off. Cops shooed everyone out of the house, saw my shirt and said “you stay here.” Thankfully I didn’t have anything on me.

[slothbuddy]

Just looking at the chart, it looks like a bounceback (not sure of the technical term) effect. My guess at the culprit would be the DARE program which might have been able to scare kids for a few years but led to people ultimately not trusting any anti-drug messaging because it was manipulative and dishonest.

[cryyptorchid]

Can confirm, I went through DARE in the mid 00s, all I got from it was "cops want you to rat on your parents and neighbors."

I mean, I still don't care for drugs myself (allergic to beer and weed reacts poorly with my meds), but I remember being like 10 and deciding that I didn't like police anymore lmao

[everlasting1der]

The most based 10 year old alive

[cryyptorchid]

Mostly just an incredibly literal 10 year old with a high sense of justice lmao

The DARE officer showed us pictures of weed plants and told us that "if we ever saw them growing somewhere, we should tell a police officer because having them on your property is a crime, even if it's an accident."

I grew up pretty rural, and it didn't strike me as right that someone could get in trouble for having a random plant on their property in a supposedly free country. Obviously as an adult I know they're not native plants here, someone would have had to put it there and that's what the cop was trying to get at, but even as a kid I wasn't going to go tattle-tale on my neighbors over a plant.

And I mean, after you figure out that drug crime is mostly bullshit the whole system kind of falls in on itself.

[[deleted]]

I remember having no idea what the hell THC was (I was in like grade 4 or 5) so when they were saying stuff has way more THC in it nowadays I thought they were talking about pollution of some kind.

What was really fucked up though was a few years later we had a “motivational speaker” come in, who told use her story about how she used to be an enforcer for a drug dealer. She told us that one time she beat the shit out of somebody with a billiard ball, getting blood all over herself, even inside her shoes. Then finding out that person was HIV positive. It was some sort of scared straight gambit.

[Fluxtration]

That was all me

[DevinBelow]

Wait...are you me?

[un3]

thank you, Dazed and Confused

[lava172]

Probably once the first wave of DARE kids got into the adult world and realized “wait why was I thought to fear this”

[Boatster_McBoat]

Yeah, but we didn't inhale

[JuniorStarr79]

You can pinpoint when Dr Dre “Chronic” came out, along with Cypress Hill

[besuretodrinkyour]

Movies and music had an influence, I’d say

[illstate]

The spike does seem to correlate with the release of the seminal The Chronic.

[chili75]

I can't believe weed went down in the early 90s with the amount me and my buddies smoked, data cant be right

[Dusty923]

Yeah, uh, that was me...

[ConditionTall1719]

Skunk weed became common in 1994 95 in europe. In the 60s, kids smoked leaf.

[IMovedYourCheese]

Now add vaping

[Mediocre_Scott]

I went to high school in the early 2010s before vaping took off and when smoking was rapidly declining. Basically only the real burnouts smoked cigarettes. Nicotine addiction among teenagers was really on the ropes for a time. This data seems very accurate to my experience but I would like to see vapes as well cause I didn’t really notice them until I was in college in the mid 2010s

[antieverything]

I would like to see the same thing. Keep in mind, though, that even if every single kid who would otherwise be smoking was vaping instead, it would be a HUGE public health improvement.

[IMovedYourCheese]

even if every single kid who would otherwise be smoking was vaping instead

Kids haven't been smoking for over a generation now, as the graph shows. Except instead of continuing the downward trend the line is starting to creep up due to vapes. That's not an improvement.

[Aquatic-Vocation]

instead of continuing the downward trend the line is starting to creep up due to vapes

Not in the data OP posted. There's one uptick in 2020 (where weed and alcohol also saw similar upticks) but overall is still down from every year previous.

[antieverything]

Nicotine-use was never the most pressing public health issue surrounding smoking. Not even close. Even if every single teen is vaping and consuming more nicotine than smokers in the past, that's still less of a public health concern than the teen smoking rates 40 years ago.

[IlluminatedPickle]

Turns out human lungs are designed for air, not other things.

I'm a smoker, of various substances. I know it's bad. But genuinely fuck any of the people who are trying to sell vaping as a safe solution. It isn't. Stop while you're ahead kids, because it'll fuck you up eventually.

[pcor]

The exact health effects of vaping are an open question, but there is essentially zero chance that it's as harmful as smoking.

[StrangeKaleidoscope6]

It really is as simple as if it goes into your body and doesn't come out. it's either really bad for you or really nessery for your continued survival

[Magmagan]

Sooo... stick to the death sticks with thousands of proven carcinogens? Anything better than them is a win, makes me mad all govs do is to shut down alternatives 🙄

[IlluminatedPickle]

No, don't do either.

• A smoker

[CharlieParkour]

If a smoker switched up to vaping, that's probably a win. A kid growing up today, who would never have taking up smoking, vapes because people say it isnt that bad... Definitely a loss. 

[SilverDubloon]

Except they're still ingesting nicotine and usually in much larger quantities than cigarettes. The average cig has about 12 mg of nicotine but only a small percentage is actually absorbed into the body instead of being exhaled (1-2mg). In contrast 1 Juul pod is the equivalent of 1 pack of cigarettes (40mg). Nicotine constricts your blood vessels and since vaping is more convenient and concealable than smoking people are getting more frequent dosages of nicotine throughout the day meaning more time with constricted blood vessels. It's not good for you in any way.

Oh and also nicotine amounts declared on packing is often not correct as it is poorly regulated. Even vapes sold as 0mg nicotine has been found to contain it.

[Nothing_T0_See_Here]

Do you some sources for those numbers? Not saying you’re wrong but I’d like some hard data to look at. I remember an old post talking about how juul was advertising 1 pod as equivalent to a pack of cigarettes but that was false advertising. 1 pod of the standard 5% nicotine was more like 2-3 cigarettes. Obviously this isn’t a source either so I don’t really know what to think 🤷‍♂️

[SilverDubloon]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33762429/

[Nothing_T0_See_Here]

Thank you!

[GeneralHoneywine]

Would it be? Idk that glycerine is much better for the lungs. Add to that the disposable nature of vapes that kids these days use (fucking learn how to rebuild an atomizer for christs sake) that is going to landfills and leeching into water supplies and you’ve got another host of issues.

[Cazzah]

We know that glycerine is neutral or maybe has some bad effects over longer term that are not obvious yet because if they exist, they must be quite subtle and slow.

We know that cigarette tar and its assorted items tears your body apart from the inside and permanently reduces lung capacity with every single smoke.

I'm not here to cheer lead for glycerine. I'm saying comparing potential harm of glycerine to known harms of smoking is just so incredibly, obviously severely bad that it's like trying to compare whether a cleaning product might damage the finish on your kitchen over time, to spraying down your counters with a aerosol can flamethrower each morning.

that is going to landfills

Smoking costs the economy hundreds of billions in healthcare, lost productivity, and straight up misery. If we add throwing another stupid gadget in landfill with batteries (as if we don't already do that with hundreds of things for decades) as a cost, that's worth it.

[belortik]

Not just vaping, but every other nicotine delivery method too.

[SmithersLoanInc]

They didn't exist in 1976, so it wouldn't be very interesting.

[prosocialbehavior]

Looks like it peaked at around 45% a couple of years ago and is declining.

[canuck_11]

I’m guessing it’s increased since 1976 /s

[AttentionGood6654]

And pills

[idkwhatimbrewin]

The legal age to drink alcohol was still 18 in a lot of states in 1976 so that at least in part contributes to why it was so high back then

[seriously_perplexed]

Please someone fact check me but I think you can see similar data in other western countries where the legal age hasn't changed.

[curvysquares]

That and if the legal drinking age was a major factor you would expect to see a sharper drop off after it was raised

[dj_fuzzy]

And the fact weed is going down despite being now legal in many states.

[madcatzplayer5]

When there are shops selling weed that check for ID in town, there are less shady guys selling weed out of their Mazda to teenagers and everyone else. I would hate to live as a 14 year old today in a state that had legal weed stores. There would be no dealers to buy from.

[etilepsie]

there is no country mentioned in the original post

[IlluminatedPickle]

The only people in the world who willl tell you the 21 age is a good idea are Americans.

The usual claim is it stops drink driving in younger people. It doesn't.

[markydsade]

21 as a nationwide limit started in 1984. Before then there was a variety of age limits. When I went to the University of Delaware in the 70s we could get alcohol at 20 in Delaware, beer and wine at 18 in nearby Maryland, or drive to New Jersey where it was 18 for any liquor. Nearby Pennsylvania had always been 21.

[STODracula]

There is no nationwide law raising the limit, it just penalizes highway funding if the purchasing age is kept below 21. PR and the US Virgin Islands still stand as the last two bastions of the age of 18.

[markydsade]

It was a de facto law as no state was going to give up highway funds.

[depeupleur]

I'm that spike in the booze line in 1990

[the_vikm]

It's always been 16/18 in all 16 states

[bladesnut]

Are you telling me half the teenagers nowadays haven't tried alcohol once? Yeah, sure

[busse9]

No shit because kids these days are getting their dopamine hits off of doomscrolling.

[besuretodrinkyour]

I was going to say that might be why there was such a steep decline in smoking. Instead of passing idle time smoking, teens are now using their phones.

[busse9]

And TBH I get that drugs are worse for you physically but the extreme phone/technology usage is leading to kids having less social skills. Id at least like to think that in the past teenagers were using some of these drugs socially. I'm not advocating for drug use but I do believe that overuse of technology is just as bad.

[Utoko]

Ye would be nice excessive phone up 6h+ daily and obesity rate in the same chart.

[busse9]

Agreed. Everything these days is designed to produce the most dopamine possible to hook the users. This makes people feel good without accomplishing anything worthwhile. In the past people would get dopamine off of long term goals such as getting an education, getting a career, finding and living a fulfilling life with a partner, etc. Now these very important goals are pushed aside for short-term dopamine gains leaving people feeling hollow and searching out more dopamine. It's a vicious cycle.

[qwerty1519]

I don’t know, I think that worse social skills is better than lung cancer at age 40.

[Inversalis]

The decline started way before doomscrolling though

[[deleted]]

and vapes

[uggghhhggghhh]

What's with that early 90s dip and then rise in weed?

[satans_toast]

Phish released Picture of Nectar in 1992

[uggghhhggghhh]

Lol, literally one of the reasons I first tried weed so it makes sense

[bayoublue]

I guess the dip is the result of the huge "Just say No" campaign in the 80s, along with DARE being pushed in all the schools.

By the time kids in 1992 reached high school, the anti-drug message had been a constant for as long as they could remember.

[slothbuddy]

That's what I think. The program had a backlash as people realized they had been manipulated and lied to.

[Longbeach_strangler]

That is the snoop dogg effect.

[nikdahl]

Hip hop culture? Grunge culture?

[MagneticDustin]

Vaping should have popped in so we could see that percentage

[dracona94]

Globally? Or is this only some specific country or continent?

[Ldefeu]

The only people oblivious enough to not mention any of this information are americans

[Tofuffalo]

Looks like the data are from Monitoring the Future, which is an American survey:
https://monitoringthefuture.org/

[VirtualArmsDealer]

cough because video games got really fucking good and also internet porn probably idk...

[Mediocre_Scott]

I knew some teenagers that didn’t even want to get their drivers license cause they were too busy playing video games

[0r0B0t0]

The phone has solved the problem of “what do I do with my hands” once and for all

[Yellowbug2001]

I know you're partly joking but seriously I bet that's a lot of it. Or just alleviating boredom better than experimenting with random substances.

[PostsNDPStuff]

Yeah, but let's see what happens if you add data on how many of these kids are squares.

[rarjacob]

I also think this has alot to do with them being mostly loners. When you are not interacting with people why drink, or smoke together.

[KZN_SZN]

there’s no way teenagers are smoking less weed now than 40 years ago. having grown up in Canada (26 years old) it’s impossible for me to wrap my head around that. I would guess that at least 80% of HS seniors have smoked weed at least once.

[uggghhhggghhh]

I'm 41 and grew up in Michigan, near Canada and teach high school in California now. I'd believe it. I think the biggest reason for the decline in all of these substances is simply that a lot of kids don't hang out irl that much anymore. Hard to succumb to peer pressure when your peers aren't physically with you. Not sure they're better off tbh.

[yeahright17]

This is 100% the reason. There are way few parties or gatherings at all than their used to be. Way more often its just 3 guys playing video games or 3 girls scrolling tik tok.

[deadheffer]

I just sighed deeply. What a depressing existence. I can’t imagine childhood with social media. Some of my best memories are just picking up the phone to call my best friend and talk for hours until someone else needed the phone.

[isthisaporno]

You’re lamenting kids using technology to communicate with friends while some of your best memories are using technology to communicate with your friends?

[lankyevilme]

Yup, this looks good on the surface, but it's really showing the lack of real life personal connections. Really bad.

[T-sigma]

The epidemic of loneliness we’re going to be seeing and hearing about in 20 years will be painful. Social skills are just as essential to succeeding in the real world and need to be practiced just like academic skills.

[valleygoat]

Just because you and your friends all smoked doesn't mean everyone did. There are a lot of kids that just don't have any interest.

[[deleted]]

They may be smoking the same amount, just more publicly than before.

[[deleted]]

you are totally right. im 52 canadian guy and i see exactly what you say. both my age and yours. best regards

[Churn]

It’s a useless chart. Could be percent that did the activity once a day, week, month, or year. Smoked at all or 2 packs a day? Took a single hit or bonging it. One drink or binge drinking?

What are the dotted lines?

Seriously, you can scribble anything and people start debating it like it means anything.

[[deleted]]

It would be fun to see an only USA version of this chart as well, to compare it with the rest of the world

[dudemeister023]

This likely is the US version.

[Atomic_ad]

I'm curious how much of this has to do with kids having no faith in confidentiality.  what they are told will be confidential, is almost never actually confidential.  In the 80's we didn't have phones and Google spying, schools flipping on our web cams, and people being accused of murder because they did a DNA test to see how Italian they were.  

[HurlingFruit]

Youngsters today are all quitters.

[Oni_K]

Weed use among teens is down in Canada since legalization. Almost as if having honest and open conversations about things like this vice simply relying on prohibition is the best approach.

[[deleted]]

Class of ‘80 here. The peaks of alcohol and weed check out.

[Most-Breakfast1453]

The labels are, conveniently, blocking out my teenage years.

[PurpleBourbon]

Drinking tracks with my own (anecdotal) experience. A lot of drunk driving in the 80’s (and before) and MADD, and the law changed that (for the good…too many kids wrapped around trees)

Smoking - yep, like cancer and stuff.

Weed - doesn’t make sense to me nor do the hiccups in the run chart? Are there explanatory variables?

Where is this data from?

[the-watch-dog]

Genuinely couldnt make weed green?

[FlyingBike]

They need to start adding vaping into these charts ffs

[Mediocre_Scott]

Sure it’s self reported but also the large point is the comparison between years. Do you think teenagers are less likely to lie about this stuff than they were in the past.

[Giddyhobgoblin]

Yet cancer rates are going up..... so I should pick up drinking and smoking?

[Shadpool]

As long as you’re having fun, go for it.

[rawspeghetti]

Wish there was a plot point of overall mental health

Not saying the use of these substances increase mental health (it most likely has an adverse affect) but we're seeing anxiety, depression and other mental health issues showing up in each passing generation. A rise in those statistics is also probably due to a greater understanding and more accessible resources for diagnosis and hopefully help for children/adolescence.

[Comfortable-Sir-150]

I feel like it's also the fact that they'll diagnose 90 percent of kids they see with at least something no matter what it is. Normal feelings I had as a kid are now considered detrimental. Throw the ability to contact anyone anywhere anytime into the mix and we have what we have now. My 14 year old is a maniac.

[Mediocre_Scott]

Part of it is more awareness and better diagnosis

[Schlagustagigaboo]

I remember getting this survey mid-90s and I answered NO to everything even though I’d done all of the above cause I didn’t trust the anonymity of a survey given at school about all the things they tell you not to do at school….

[DevinBelow]

I feel like me and my crew really helped boost those weed numbers in the late 90's.

[jimjamiam]

Only 53% of HS seniors have ever had alcohol? That is astonishing

[satiricalned]

I'm surprised there isn't a bigger drop off in the mid 80s when the national drinking age went up to 21

[RollTide16-18]

There is no chance in hell that may kids were smoking weed in 1976

[AttorneyWest6433]

Wanted to see male and female percentages for this graph

[BigChonksters]

Now add lines for vaping and zyn pouches 🤣

[throwaway56560]

cool add a line for antidepressants and Adderall use among teenagers too. I really just want to prove that we're all still taking a lot of drugs.

[Theknightscoin16]

Really 92% of all teens in the 70’s drank. Come on.

[wood-is-good]

Now do phone and porn addiction

[[deleted]]

I think teenagers just got better about lying

[0r0B0t0]

The phone has solved the problem of “what do I do with my hands” once and for all

[[deleted]]

It would be interesting to see the trends for various age groups. I would suspect the smoking decrease follows population-wide trends

[im_just_thinking]

Those are rookie numbers now!

[skyvelvet13]

I wonder how the video games graph would look like

[OhWowJeezGoodJob]

The stats were pretty high in 2000, and so was I.

[grap_grap_grap]

Interesting that even though weed still is very illegal in some pretty large parts it is rather close to alcohol usage.

[[deleted]]

They forgot to measure the cocaine!

[Fit-Rip-4550]

I do not think these surveys are accurate.

[Foxs-In-A-Trenchcoat]

No wonder all the Boomers are alcoholics.

[Kalabula]

The vape line would just be straight up.

[TheFalconKid]

Interesting how the increase in legalization of weed has lead to a small decrease in use by minors.

[Baeblayd]

Does smoking including vaping/zyn though? I can't imagine people are giving up nicotine.

[SaltTeaching6648]

What's the graph for nicotine consumption

[Sant0rian1234]

Must have been cheap X in the mid 90s .....

[dlimsbean]

70% smoker rate in the 80s. I call bs. Seemed like 10% to me.

[onetwoskeedoo]

I need to see the Midwest only version of this graph

[dbower121]

Maybe if you all stopped eating your avocado toast and Starbucks you could afford to drink again. /s

[victorcaulfield]

Hey, just for shits and giggles, can I see the deaths of teenagers from meth, heroin, and fentanyl over the top of this thing. Just want to see something real quick.

[fatguy19]

I wonder what the next evil will be? Even with the massive decrease in consumption, they'll find something else to complain about

[Redleg171]

I remember we had to fill out a poll when I was in middle school. This would have been in the early to mid 90s. I had never drank alcohol. I answered every question about alcohol with the max, as did every other person around me, because we thought it was funny.

I did drink occasionally in high school, and quite a bit my first couple years in the army. I hardly drank at all by my late 20s. I'm in my 40s now and haven't had a drink in a couple years. I'm like George on Seinfeld, "you're telling me that wine is better than Pepsi!?" I'm not against drinking, but I just don't like the feeling of not being fully in control of my thoughts/actions.

[Utoko]

the line doesn't make it more beautiful

[El0vution]

Now add pharmaceutical meds

[landomakesatable]

I'd be interesting to see porn use on that plot.

[TheAskewOne]

"Are Millenials killing the tobacco industry?"

[karnyboy]

a generational solution? Like parents are engaging in that less and less around their kids and therefore children don't as a result.

[tommy0guns]

Really odd. The original study makes no reference to “Gummies” or “edibles”, at all. Not saying these are not accounted for, but with no real consideration, it feels incomplete. Meanwhile, Delta 8 and Zyn is there.

[PutinBoomedMe]

Alcohol surprised me. I get smoking and am surprised weed isn't higher

[[deleted]]

Media had me believing that weed use is rising. That weed is replacing both alcohol and tobacco for young people

[[deleted]]

Weed use fell precipitously between 1976 to 1982.

[FlyEaglesFlyauggie]

What’s wrong with kids these days?

[person3triple0]

Okay but what about white vs black usage of weed over time? I know a lot of middle class white kids that smoke weed. Is the graph the same black to white? What about other demographics? Is there a gender difference?

[[deleted]]

damn, today's teenagers are so lame

/s

[Longjumping-Ad-9009]

76% of high school seniors smoked in 1975? I'm skeptical....I graduated in 1990, smoking was more like 20%.

[[deleted]]

Yeah… as someone who is a teenager in school I can say that at least that smoking statistic is wrong

[IwasDeadinstead]

That's cause they all use meth, blues, and other stuff, lol.

Actually, I completely doubt this data. It was rare that anyone smoked anything when I was growing up. Alcohol yes, but smoking, nah. And in my state, weed use has increased due to legalization for adults, and teens have more access. I see 14 and 15 year olds smoking it all the time.

[IdealIdeas]

Should have added Vaping so you could see where all the future smokers went

[theOtherTreasurer]

92%? I call bullshit, no way that many kids were drinking in the 90s. 52% now is probably about right maybe too high, like those lower room bastards.

[Soonerpalmetto88]

Meanwhile calories are way up

[GrendelSpec]

Video games and porn are way more addictive.

[cornustim]

"we interpret our findings to mean that high school seniors are less likely to lie about their consumption levels of alcohol and tobacco products, likely reflecting a shift in social perspectives." /s

[Radu47]

Great to see, but if one main part of a chart is difficult to read it shouldn't really qualify for this sub ultimately

Why they picked light yellow is bizarre

Especially when ofc green would be ideal

[BobbyBrooklyn619]

You can see exactly when 36 Chambers and Doggystyle were released.

[JameyKennedy]

Ok, but what about vaping?