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Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

• nextworddev 2y ago
  TikTok might be more additive for the average teen
• gnabgib 2y ago
  Original source (4 points, 8 hours ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42442279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42442279
• Izkata 2y ago
  > But, according to data released Tuesday, the number of eighth, 10th, and 12th graders who collectively abstained from the use of alcohol, marijuana, or nicotine hit a new high this year. Use of illicit drugs also fell on the whole and use of non-heroin narcotics (Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet) hit an all-time low. From an unexpected conversation with some younger people not long ago (though not this young), they may have just switched to LSD.
  • fullshark 2y ago
    They switched to smartphones
    • smartmic 2y ago
      This. And what about the psychosocial consequences, will it be an improvement compared to the other substances? I doubt it.
      • prerok 2y ago
        While I don't think smartphone addiction should be taken lightly, it's still a far cry from substance abuse.
        • s1artibartfast 2y ago
          I'm not so sure, especially if you look at the sum societal impact, and not just the worst outcomes. My personal take is that the net social impact is positive for alcohol, marijuana, hallucinogens, and maybe some of the party drugs. For most people, they tend to be a social lubricant, tool for exploration, and source of fun. I think that smartphone use probably balances out negatively. I think for most people, they have a pretty severe negative impact on their lives, and for some, an extremely negative impact. The worst outcomes for drug use are probably worse than those for smartphones, but not by too much in my opinion.
        • Nextgrid 2y ago
          Substance abuse is pretty much universally understood to be wrong (including by the addicts themselves, but they lack the help to get out of it). Social media usage on the other hand has been normalized and now humanity's social fabric is in the control of a few companies who are happy to rent it out to the highest bidder. This has obvious implications regarding democracy, surveillance, misinformation, etc. From a society perspective, I'll take substance/alcohol abuse any day because it appears to be self-regulating at a level that while is higher than we'd like, is much lower than what it takes to destabilize society and democracy.
      • alephnerd 2y ago
        > will it be an improvement compared to the other substances? I doubt it Smartphone addiction beats having cirrhosis. Therapy's cheaper than a liver transplant.
  • carlosjobim 2y ago
    You don't use LSD habitually. If they switched to LSD, then that's very interesting.
    • codr7 2y ago
      Some do, and that's fine too.
      • kamikazeturtles 2y ago
        “If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.” ― Alan Watts
        • codr7 2y ago
          Even Alan Watts wasn't right about everything. This is fine as far as his personal preferences go; as for everyone else, none of his business.
      • PittleyDunkin 2y ago
        LSD is not a drug that you can develop an addiction to. Habit is one thing—some people take it regularly—but it doesn't work very well if you do take it frequently. Which is not to say that LSD can't potentially be harmful. Of course it can. But it's not very analogous to the typically destructive drugs (alcohol, amphetamines, strong opiates) and it's not going to mess with your dopamine the way they do.
        • codr7 2y ago
          You can develop a psychological addiction to any experience, and some like LSD. Once every week or so for a while is perfectly doable. Agreed, very different kinds of substances.
      • pvaldes 2y ago
        > Some do, and that's fine too. And those should learn something from Syd Barret's life Could had been a millionaire rock star, women, expensive toys, children. He could had everything for the rest of his life. But he choose LSD. As a lot of people claim, LSD is a cool and harmless funny drug, right?. His life instead was: living in his mum house since 24 Yo, with his brain like a car crash, and all the time in the world to think on his boy room about how he managed to mess up his life so badly. So thanks, but no way.
  • jsheard 2y ago
    Notably absent from those stats is nitrous oxide, which has had a resurgence in popularity lately. https://archive.is/wRa3Q https://archive.is/wRa3Q
    • cbdhsjshs 2y ago
      wowowowow Ketamine too. Mine comes in the mail from doctor that's conducting a 'safery trial'. They've never asked for feedback from me, and have never pushed back on me requesting a higher dosage.
  • _yb2s 2y ago
    Anyone that has experienced LSD would know that what you are saying is impossible and makes zero sense. Other than both being chemicals, the effects are so radically different that they have no interchangeable purpose. Specifically LSD cannot be used to escape trauma or negative emotions, if anything it does the opposite and makes you confront them head on, often terrifyingly so, and as such LSD has something like negative addictiveness. It’s like saying someone switched from using staples to orange juice- it’s an incoherent statement.
    • Izkata 2y ago
      The study makes no distinction between that and recreational use. "Getting drunk with friends" counted, for example. Besides if anything I'd say current generations have less trauma to avoid so they're more likely to use it than past generations.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
• vouaobrasil 2y ago
  I wonder if the new drug of choice is actually technology. In some ways I think that the addiction to technology has some similar mellowing effects as drugs. Some research indicates that smartphone addiction is also related to low self-esteem and avoidant attachment [1] and that smartphones can become an object of attachment [2]. The replacement of drugs by technology is not surprising as it significantly strengthens technological development especially as it is already well past the point of diminishing returns for improving every day life. 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563218300955 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07475... 2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563217303412 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07475...
  • eikenberry 2y ago
    The article discusses all drug use, not just addictive use. I don't think addiction is prevalent enough to solely explain those numbers.
    • vouaobrasil 2y ago
      Well, I think there is also an emergent theme in the research that there also needs to be two distinct concepts: addiction, and attachment. See [1]. [1] Hertlein, Katherine M., and Markie LC Twist. "Attachment to technology: The missing link." Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy 17.1 (2018): 2-6.
  • some_furry 2y ago
    Does compulsive technology use trigger the same neural pathways as addictive substances? Because "addiction" is a very loaded term (with a specific clinical definition when it's not being used colloquially), and the sources you cited used "attachment" instead.
    • _yb2s 2y ago
      I think the answer here is a bit subtle and hard to explain, because it contradicts a lot of common assumptions about addiction and drugs. In short, many addictive substances create a chemical dependence that often has awful, even potentially fatal chemical withdrawal symptoms. Behavioral addictions don't cause this, which makes people assume they are entirely something different, and categorically less serious and damaging. This is wrong- because those withdrawal symptoms, while they do make it harder to quit by making going cold turkey difficult and sometimes impossible, they are not the underlying reason why these drugs are being abused in the first place, nor the reason they destroy peoples lives. The reason is that they stimulate the reward system and/or allow one to escape negative emotions and trauma. Behavioral addictions also do that, and can just as easily ruin ones life, by completely overcoming someones mind and will, such that they no longer are able to live their life, and are unable to escape or quit with willpower, just as much so as with drugs that cause withdrawal. They can still completely ruin your life and drive you to suicide, etc. Moreover, people also often emphasize that many addictive substances can directly cause serious health problems, or even death. This is also not central to their harmfulness, nor always the case. In fact, for a drug to have substantial abuse potential it must be relatively free from serious adverse health effects, at least in the short term, or else it would become impossible to abuse- the most damaging substances are the ones where people can take higher doses for longer with less adverse effects, because this more strongly emphasizes its ability to be used to strongly stimulate the reward system and escape negative emotions and trauma for longer periods of time - cementing the addiction-, without causing a new negative experience on its own. Methamphetamine for example is unique among stimulants in how benign it is- allowing people to take massive doses over really long periods of time, and not face immediate health issues. Counter-intuitively, this is actually what makes it have so much abuse potential and cause so much harm, compared to other stimulants which quickly make you sick or feel awful at high doses. From this perspective, you can see that the fact that behavioral addictions are also able to be repeated in "large doses" for long periods of time without immediate short term health consequences can make them have a high potential for harm in the long term.
• foobarian 2y ago
  I always thought, thank goodness for video games because without them I would probably be a drunk or something similarly physically harmful. I guess the world is just now catching up :-D
  • georgeburdell 2y ago
    I used to regularly skip meals when I gamed. Weight started creeping up after I quit
    • amelius 2y ago
      You also got older ... Age is a factor.
      • gardenhedge 2y ago
        Does weight increase as you get older if you consume the correct amount of calories?
        • munk-a 2y ago
          Weight will increase as you get older if you consume a constant amount of calories. Your metabolism slows with age (and generally entering the job market means a much more sedentary life style for most white collar workers).
          • gardenhedge 2y ago
            So you adjust your calories
            • munk-a 2y ago
              Calorie counting is a habit that's generally unnecessary as a teenager so it's a habit not everyone is familiar with.
            • 2y ago
• logicchains 2y ago
  Presumably it's related to increased conservatism in gen Z males: https://www.axios.com/2024/09/28/gen-z-men-conservative-poll https://www.axios.com/2024/09/28/gen-z-men-conservative-poll . Conservatives generally have more negative attitudes to drug use.
  • PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    That poll is really confusing. There are multiple types of conservatism—one is very media-driven (e.g. "omg they did a gender wokeness in my game") and then there's the global variety (liking traditional values). The poll presumes these are the same social phenomena when they're very obviously not. It doesn't help that the way our political parties (which is what the poll seems to be based on) differentiate themselves map extremely poorly onto how americans differentiate themselves. edit: political -> media-driven
  • KerrAvon 2y ago
    Nope, women are getting less conservative and this applies to them too. > Conservatives generally have more negative attitudes to drug use That is categorically false. I think it would be interesting to look at whether the rate of physical / sexual abuse has changed, since that's significantly correlated with use of hard drugs.
  • rockskon 2y ago
    Not really. Don't conflate octogenarian-guided party and community policy with what people actually do.
  • rvense 2y ago
    Do they actually have lower rates of drug use, though? They also have more negative views of homosexuality, but their gatherings can still make Grindr crash.
  • bryananderson 2y ago
    Attitudes are not the same thing as behaviors. Source: I’m from a really red state with a higher rate of overdose deaths than California
• ikmckenz 2y ago
  Teens aren't doing drugs, smoking, drinking, or having sex. And the suicide rate has never been higher.
  • hathawsh 2y ago
    I'm not contradicting you, but it appears that the suicide rate hasn't changed since 2018. See this interactive chart and switch the Injury Type to Suicide: https://wisqars.cdc.gov/fatal-injury-trends/ https://wisqars.cdc.gov/fatal-injury-trends/ That chart shows the rate has hovered around 4000 per month for years. That's 4000 too many, but at least it's not increasing.
    • ecshafer 2y ago
      But we are also seeing shrinking amounts of children. So a steady suicide amount in raw terms is an increasing rate.
    • kube-system 2y ago
      That is the raw number, not the rate. Since the spread of social media, suicide rates are up for children, significantly: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db471.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db471.pdf > The suicide rate for people aged 15–19 did not change significantly from 2001 through 2009, then increased 57% from 2009 through 2017 > For people aged 10–14, the suicide rate tripled from 2007 through 2018
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • moralestapia 2y ago
        I don't follow. If the rate has gone and population as well, how come the total number is about the same?
        • Schiendelman 2y ago
          It decreased for older folks, and there are fewer kids now.
• belval 2y ago
  > Monitoring the Future Study, which annually surveys eighth, 10th and 12th grade students across the United States. I wonder if there is correlation to the opioid crisis, where the "downsides" (if you want to call it that) of drug abuse are so visible to teenagers that they are staying away from it. Doing drugs when it's associated with being "cool"/interesting like rappers is one thing, but when you associate it to fentanyl zombies living in the streets it loses a lot of its glamour. I was not able to find the regional breakdown so it's just a conjecture though.
  • conductr 2y ago
    Not data driven at all, just my life experience, but I was a teen during the crack epidemic phase. It certainly had me and my peers cautious of crack itself, nobody wanted anything do to with it, but it was not a deterrence to drug usage in general. I was pretty experimental but when offered some crack once I remember declining; I wasn't even curious. The things that had the most correlation with my drug experimentation was 1) social activity/partying and 2) boredom. I think it's important to note as the average teen socializes significantly less and always has a digital crack pipe to cure their boredom; so I'd look there for a stronger causation.
  • throwup238 2y ago
    I can’t speak for anyone else but I’ve completely stopped doing any drugs that I can’t make myself or purchase from a liquor store or dispensary (or shroom store). The risk of fentanyl making it into the product even for unrelated party drugs is just insane now and I don’t trust myself to use fentanyl strips properly while already high or tripping. I wonder if that impacts teen drug use too, because for the first time opponents have a tangible risk to point to instead of just a dumb frying pan commercial and fearmongering.
    • bbarn 2y ago
      I was a big fan of cocaine back in the 90s. I never got to the "problem" level with it but if it was there I was the first to raise my hand. My personality has changed a little, but I'd still probably jump at it today, if it weren't for the fear of fentanyl. I'm not worried about addiction, I'm worried about death.
• sailfast 2y ago
  Is it possible this batch of survey respondents just doesn’t trust anyone with information about their habits, so they lied?
  • jimbob45 2y ago
    Came here to say this. I remember these surveys in high school and how non-seriously we took them. Really, I can’t imagine any group less credible to survey than high schoolers.
    • _tom_ 2y ago
      But it's changing over time, and students always lied. But it's possible that this generation is wiser/ more cynical and doesn't believe in anonymous surveys. I know I don't.
  • naijaboiler 2y ago
    everywhere this survey has been done. colleges, independent firms, doctors office, the results are all the same. Teens and young adults today are doing less sex, less drugs. All those can't be wrong unless todays teens are collectively less truthful than tennagers from previous eras. I doubt that.
• oortoo 2y ago
  Another aspect here I think is the generalized fear and anxiety present in young people. Having spoken to some family members in the 15-18 age bracket, the message they seem to be receiving is that they are without a future... they won't be buying homes, they won't be getting high paying jobs, and that the system is not going to work in their favor. I think people of this age are uniquely feeling mortal and vulnerable in a way teens typically have not, causing them to be more hesitant to risk losing their mind which they may need to protect themselves down the road. But they also are modern teenagers, not only low in willpower but also coddled by their smartphones, which is why technology addiction is the go to "safer" alternative to habitual drug use. Also, you typically need to be unsupervised with friends to get into drugs, something teenagers no longer have access to compared to 10-15 years ago. If we look at the social decline due to the pandemic, what made experts think these kids would bounce back? They are forever changed, and will forever be less social than other generations because they missed out on formative experiences.
  • yieldcrv 2y ago
    > uniquely feeling mortal and vulnerable in a way teens typically have not, causing them to be more hesitant to risk losing their mind which they may need to protect themselves down the road its just as easy to reach the exact opposite conclusion when everything is so hopeless and nihilistic. you are extrapolating way too much here. less unsupervised time, location tracking from parents, unregulated dopamine from chatgroups and algorithms in public social media, and the risk of fentany and other poisons in drugs, are much better contributors to extrapolate from
  • crtified 2y ago
    I imagine that, for the young people of the world, the Covid years really ripped away the illusion that the adults of the world are in competent control. To a degree that modern generations (from otherwise relatively stable, wealthy countries) have never experienced. While there are other major factors clearly contributing to the generational angst, I think this was the catalyst. I wonder how the economics stack up, because intoxicants aren't free. If the researchers are saying there's X less drug use, then presumably that either implies (a) teenagers are now spending X more on other areas instead (and what are they?), or (b) teenagers now have X less money.
• yieldcrv 2y ago
  The article linked here doesn't compare previous time periods, only showing the percentages of use/abstaining that they detected now and just saying that's a decline or record decline, while the article it links to does compare to prior time periods for you to make up your mind about that better https://news.umich.edu/missing-rebound-youth-drug-use-defies-expectations-continues-historic-decline/ https://news.umich.edu/missing-rebound-youth-drug-use-defies...
• kalium-xyz 2y ago
  I remember lying on these surveys when i was 12 out of paranoia, i wonder if the internet makes teens more prone to this
• mschuster91 2y ago
  "surprising experts", LOL It was clear ever back when the Dutch decriminalised weed that its normalisation led to youth not being that much interested any more, and so it was everywhere else where weed was legalised decades later. But hey, just because the Dutch have had decades of experience, the rest of the world still isn't able to learn from them. It's time to end the war on drugs, once and for all. And DARE etc can go and die in a hellfire where it belongs. > The initial drop in drug use between 2020 and 2021 was among the largest ever recorded. No surprise, with the world in lockdown and most schools in lockdown it was harder to get drugs, and meeting up to consume drugs could in many countries lead to a knock on the door or even a raid from the police - it happened quite the surprising amount of times in Germany.
  • pkaye 2y ago
    They only legalized it recently though. https://www.vice.com/en/article/legal-weed-netherlands/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/legal-weed-netherlands/
    • mschuster91 2y ago
      Yeah, it was decriminalized... but that wasn't my point. The point is, police didn't care, and it wasn't interesting for young people because of that.
      • earnestinger 2y ago
        Legalisation/decriminalisation was only one part of the strategy. Real problem they had was heroin. So they made heroin(or some replacement) free, pushing out drug dealers from the market. Importantly: providing other help to addicts, so they could/would be part of society. https://youtu.be/6OYLoPvLzPo?feature=shared https://youtu.be/6OYLoPvLzPo?feature=shared (1h video comparing situation in US, Portugal, Netherlands; Netherlands part starts around 27:00)
• idunnoman1222 2y ago
  Well, tell the experts that if you just stay home and stare at your phone, you don’t go out an experiment with drugs with your irl friends (because you don’t have any) Also, when I was a teen, I had my own place kids nowadays live in the basement
• cullumsmith 2y ago
  The drugs are digital now.
• jimmar 2y ago
  My pet theory is that buying drugs requires a level of personal interaction that many young people now avoid.
  • giantg2 2y ago
    That actually makes a lot of sense. I know of quite a few younger people who pass on things they can't order online. Grubhub vs phone-in takeout, Amazon vs malls, etc. I wonder if the areas that are legalizing drugs will see a DrugHub app pop up.
  • zingababba 2y ago
    It's insanely easy to buy drugs online.
    • cute_boi 2y ago
      But someone has to tell that link and I am sure peer pressure can be one of the major reason for addiction.
    • ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
      You still need crypto, no?
      • musictubes 2y ago
        Nope. Don't even need the dark web. All you need is social media. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/12/who-needs-the-dark-web-drug-sales-flourish-on-social-media/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/12/who-needs-the-da...
        • makeitdouble 2y ago
          I don't see anywhere how they actually buy the drug. Or do teenagers get legal access to credit cards in the US ?
          • 2y ago
• threeseed 2y ago
  There is also a corresponding decline in alcohol consumption. One angle that hasn't been researched enough is the link to anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication. These has been a significant rise in the prescription of both to young adults: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/anxiety-prescriptions-on-the-rise-among-young-adults#Data-from-2-5-million-people https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/anxiety-prescripti... And on these medications there are often severe interactions with alcohol and drugs which would be enough to frighten off most people. Some e.g. bupropion even reduce addictive tendencies entirely.
  • bonestamp2 2y ago
    The other thing I haven't seen in this thread yet is that kids today are really focused on is: lifestyle -- they want to work hard at school so they can get great jobs to make a lot of money so they can afford to own a home and live healthy lives. With the cost of living, and everything else, they're going to have to make a lot of money to life the kind of life that they're used to as kids. My kids are not on social media. They eat like pro athletes. They ask me why I'm eating things with higher amounts of sugar or ultra-processed foods. They do an hour of gym class at school every weekday and then they want to do sports every night of the week and on the weekend. They do their homework and get straight As. They are concerned about bullying and suicide -- they talk to each other, even siblings, in a healthy and caring way. My oldest couldn't understand why people drink alcohol if it's bad for you. I explained that some people like the way it makes them feel, "So what? It's bad for you. Why would anyone do that to their body?" They couldn't understand why I bought a gas guzzling luxury sports car instead of an electric car given the state of the environment (I've wanted one my whole life and I could finally afford one, yes it's selfish and they are more ethical than I am). There are definitely a bunch of things going on with Gen Z and Alpha that have made (some of) them this way. But one of the results is that they're not interested in a lot of unhealthy things simply because they know they're unhealthy. They can't understand why we do things that we know are bad for us, the environment, etc. and they're probably right. They're not perfect, but I do have faith in the next generation and we're going to see some amazing leaders come out of this group.
    • 2y ago
• yloswgns 2y ago
  Technology is causing antisocial behaviour in young people and teens, I see it everywhere in public. Even amongst friends on a night out people are glued to their phones. Antisocial behaviour brings fewer opportunities to meet people and be exposed to drugs. Drugs were rife during my adolescence in the UK no matter what part of 'society' you were from during the 2000s. I get the impression speaking to younger colleaugues that there a fewer big house parties and nights out clubbing and summers spent going from festival to festival. I started smoking weed as a young teen simply through boredom and curiosity, I only had access to a shared computer a few hours per day. The rest of the time I was out, god forbid, socialising with friends and strangers alike (the skatepark, local parks, parent-less houses, etc...).
• jaco6 2y ago
  Two things: Even the “cool kids” are staying inside and using their phones all day. Cool used to mean you were at the party, now it just means you have a high snapchat score. Other thing is genuine fear of accidental fentanyl consumption. They’re making fake Xans with fentanyl in them, fentanyl is being found in coke powder. Plenty of people aren’t taking the risk with street drugs anymore. Jelly Roll said so in an interview, he’s a big recreational drug user but doesn’t trust the supply anymore. Good job dealers!
  • LorenzoGood 2y ago
    > Even the “cool kids” are staying inside and using their phones all day. Cool used to mean you were at the party, now it just means you have a high snapchat score. Eyebrow raise.
    • DiggyJohnson 2y ago
      At what? This is clearly true by experience. As long as you remember it’s a rate and not an absolute statement. Cool kids still go to more parties and are less terminally online than their lamer peers, but it’s a lot less parties and a lot more screen time for the cool kid as well.
      • deadbabe 2y ago
        I think the eyebrow raise is due to the fact that nobody cool uses Snapchat anymore. It’s like Facebook now.
        • dag11 2y ago
          For millenials and older gen z yeah, but it's my understanding (and my complete surprise as a millenial) that snapchat is actually big again amongst actual children. Can anyone who better knows the reality here chime in?
          • deadbabe 2y ago
• kickout 2y ago
  Think most commenters are correct and that tech and screens have usurped more “medicinal” drugs. What I find interesting is the general lack of care among folks here at HN. There was a comment thread about some person in AL alluding to not being able to find qualified workers at their government contractor implying a morale hang up on “weapon systems” I’d argue tech kills more folks than these contractors but people can easily look past that.
  • _Algernon_ 2y ago
    It's a question of spectacle. 300 people dying in a plane crash is perceived as worse than 300'000 dying of preventable disease. (Or 1 insurance CEO being killed being perceived as worse than 50'000 being killed by denied insurance claims)
    • kickout 2y ago
      Thus my point. Cognitive dissonance at its finest (worst)
• euniceee3 2y ago
  Blame the homeless for this win. Seeing the outcome so blatantly all around us is pushing a net positive. Next big shift will be from the legalization of more recreational drugs.
  • thefaux 2y ago
    I don't know about that. I feel like the cat is out of the bag with cannabis and that it actually has the net effect of making the population more docile and accepting of the status quo which is good for power (individual experiences may vary of course).
    • nozzlegear 2y ago
      Isn't there research showing that people are smoking less weed in the places it's been legalized? It lost its "cool factor" after that.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• Peacefulz 2y ago
  In the age of fentanyl I am not at all surprised by this news. The age of experimentation is waning when you can't be sure that your substance is genuine and the cost of being wrong could be your life. If I were a young person today I probably wouldn't even touch anything powdered or pressed.
• nozzlegear 2y ago
  It's remarkable to me that many of the top-level comments on this story are all positing that something (i.e. the damn phones) must have replaced drug use and we're just not accounting for it. And if it isn't the damn phones, then it must be that the kids are just too scared of modern-day drugs and the dangers lurking within. I'm not saying it's not phone addiction, or fentanyl in the weed, but is it really that hard to believe that the youths just don't want to do drugs as much as your generation did?
  • throwaway_ahfmn 2y ago
    Drugs of one kind or another have never been unpopular. So yes, it is hard to believe.
    • nozzlegear 2y ago
      I guess I'm primed to believe it, because I'm a teetotaler who's never done drugs and never drank a bit of alcohol in my entire life. I'd like to believe that the younger generations are more like me. Of course, I'm just one data point, and a millennial so not even the article's subject demographic.
• kylehotchkiss 2y ago
  Ample bodycam footage of people on drugs, or overdosing is widely available. I’d like to imagine that many people’s first exposure to drugs is seeing the terrifying things it leads them to do.
  • Gigachad 2y ago
    There’s regular news articles about people straight up dying from dodgy pills. Why would you take that risk. There is no way to safely use drugs when a single pill could kill you instantly.
    • bdangubic 2y ago
      not that you are wrong but life without risk is what today’s kids are mostly experiencing and it is no way to live. statistically based on number of pills consumed your chances of straight-up dying are very low. drug dealers do not want to kill you any more than Elon selling you a Tesla without brakes. we do thousands of inherently dangerous things all the time (e.g. each time you fly you should know that chances are your aircraft may have been maintained / repaired in any of the 900 facilities outside of the United States and such work is performed by people making less money per day than you spend on pumpkin spice latte… and yet we fly…) statistically though, your chances of dying from a dodgy pill are very very low
      • Gigachad 2y ago
        I find this discussion quite odd. Society has worked quite hard for a long time now to reduce drug usage, and now it’s actually going down, and somehow that’s meant to be a bad thing. I get the point about kids being afraid of taking any risks being bad. But why is taking drugs important to someone’s life in a way that riding a mountain bike and risking hurting yourself doesn’t satisfy?
  • CamelCaseName 2y ago
    Is there? LiveLeak and it's ilk are gone now
• anonymouscaller 2y ago
  I’m guessing it’s linked to declining social interaction among teenagers, which also explains the decline in alcohol consumption too.
• nemo44x 2y ago
  Isn’t this good? We’ve literally told teenagers to not use drugs or have sex for decades and it’s obviously working. The consequences are far higher today or at least more well understood and the messaging is getting through. We’ve trained younger generations to be extremely risk adverse and they’ve listened. I line they’re probably dangerously exposed to other risks that we don’t have generational knowledge of yet.
  • _tom_ 2y ago
    Social media, for example.
  • bowsamic 2y ago
    Yeah I think it’s just this. We learnt that alcohol is actually really bad for you in many ways, and we taught our children, and they listened. I think it’s pretty funny that our instinct is somehow to be slightly horrified that they stopped drinking or using drugs. I guess they can’t do anything right
    • jppope 2y ago
      I think the issue here is more about the unintended second order effects. Yay! Drug and alcohol use is down... annnnnnddddd now theres a mental health crisis, increase in suicide rate, and the fertility rate is dropping like well drug and alcohol use. I'm personally not saying the isolated health aspect of reduced drug and alcohol use is a bad thing. In a vacuum it is obviously positive. When you consider how they function in a broader social system it may turn out that its not a positive change.
• D-Coder 2y ago
  Oddball theory: COVID hit credulous / non-technical people harder, because they refused to believe in it and didn't take precautions. So a lot of people who might have turned to drugs died for an entirely unrelated reason, leaving teens who are "smart" enough to avoid drugs. ("Smart" here is not intended to mean just IQ.)
  • at-w 2y ago
    From 2020-2024, the UN recorded ~17,000 deaths among children in all measured countries combined. The share of that that is among older children/teens and in developed countries like the US is vanishingly small.
• AI_beffr 2y ago
  the appetite for self-destruction is just as big now as it used to be among teenagers. i think people simply dont understand how self-destructive social media is. thats why theyre surprised.
• rdl 2y ago
  Fentanyl contamination/adulteration seems like a sufficient reason to not use any street drug active in greater than microgram quantities. (If I were a parent, I'd probably prefer to give "good" drugs to a kid who was unavoidably going to do them vs. trust their friends/etc. to find safe ones, although there's obviously horrible moral hazard there. I have no idea what the right answer is.)
• Arubis 2y ago
  Most initial exposure to drugs is social. That happens less if you’re holed up in your room on your phone.
• luckydata 2y ago
  They don't know who to buy them from because they don't have any friends and don't go out.
• cyberax 2y ago
  There are now very visible examples of drug use consequences in pretty much every Downtown of a large city.
• LosEstupidos 2y ago
  [flagged]
• deleted 2y ago
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• keepamovin 2y ago
  It doesn't look so good on IG and TikTok if you're wasted and unhealthy. Image culture's positive flipside is appearance is a currency of respect, and people don't want to lose it. I guess there had to be some silver lining, right? Ha! :)
• whatever1 2y ago
  It's because they dont have same day delivery. Who has the energy to stop scrolling on tiktok and get out of the house to get anything. Let alone drugs that require you to speak to someone.
  • _tom_ 2y ago
    You can probably get same day delivery on drugs, too.
• _tom_ 2y ago
  Incorrect title. "Illegal drug use among teens drops" is what the study is talking about. Psychoactive prescriptions are up probably orders of magnitude in the last fifty years. People have been talking about "self medicating" with alcohol and other legal drugs to deal with various problems for decades. Now there are legal "doctor medicating" options.
• deleted 2y ago
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• ipaddr 2y ago
  The obvious reason is they don't have the freedom or space to with helicopter parents and fear of strangers. It's a wonder they even leave the house but if they do mother will drive and pick them up. Plus weed is legal now in many places. Kids don't want to do what their parents are doing.
• deleted 2y ago
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• Animats 2y ago
  The pot industry is having serious problems. The market was not only way overestimated, sales are down.[1] World's smallest violin plays. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/de36eb98-f28d-4594-9ae6-624d25802777 https://www.ft.com/content/de36eb98-f28d-4594-9ae6-624d25802...
  • coffeebeqn 2y ago
    This growth story I never understood. The grey market has been extremely saturated for at least 20-30 years - demand can’t really grow from “everyone who wants it has it”. There is barely any value add that a company can do with the raw output (flower). The growing and processing equipment is already a mature market. Growing is easy if you can follow a basic guide and invest $500 in equipment. Harvesting is just cutting it off the plant and putting it up to dry.. The vape cartridges etc, anyone can buy from AliBaba for cents a piece. I just don’t see where you can outcompete a random Joe
    • paulryanrogers 2y ago
      Fentanyl contamination is a real concern though.
      • coffeebeqn 2y ago
        Why would anyone put fentanyl in weed? The black market does have many negative consequences I agree on that
    • Animats 2y ago
      A competent large scale farmer can outcompete a random Joe, much to the annoyance of the potheads who thought they were going to own the industry. The largest pot operation in California also has tomatoes and cucumbers growing in similar greenhouses.[1][2] Their production cost is down to $103/lb.[2] "For a small farmer, it costs around $500 to grow a pound. It’s barely paying the bills.”[3] It's commercial agriculture. Go big or go home. The little operations are thus rapidly closing down. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/largest-california-cannabis-farm-glass-house-17924258.php https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/largest-california-c... [2] https://glasshousebrands.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Q2-2024-Earnings-Call-Transcript.pdf https://glasshousebrands.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Q2-2... [3] https://www.foodengineeringmag.com/articles/99944-price-per-lb-of-cannabis-falls-in-california-due-to-massive-overproduction https://www.foodengineeringmag.com/articles/99944-price-per-...
• nperez 2y ago
  I think information and culture/fashion both have a lot to do with it. Pre-social media, you could get drunk and embarrass yourself, and forget about it by the next day. Now everything is recorded. Information about alcoholism is easier to come by, and there are influencers like worldoftshirts who show people what life as an alcoholic is like. I don't see how anyone could want a drink after watching content like that. Smoking weed in front of a camera doesn't seem as edgy as it used to now that it's legal. Having red eyes in a photo is annoying. Vaping has always had a cringe factor. All of this tech is giving us the ability to look in the mirror and see what we're doing to ourselves.
  • yapyap 2y ago
    oh my god, never thought there would be a day I saw WorldofTshirts mentioned on HN
• tempodox 2y ago
  Or someone misunderstood. Teen drug use did not decline, it shifted. From substances to social media / “AI”.
• 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
  Why would a teen use drugs when they have TikTok? All the kids I grew up with who did drugs did it largely because they were bored or had bad family lives. The internet is an increasingly addictive distraction.
• 01100011 2y ago
  A question for older folks: what did drugs do for us? Why did we do them? For me, drugs were: - socialization. I met a lot of friends through alcohol & drugs and they became the social glue for my circle. Alcohol & drugs became a large part of my identity. - a way to cope with boredom. Every day is a party when you're high. - identity. In my generation, drugs were mostly cool and associated with iconoclasts, artists, etc. Young people's culture changed. I don't think kids see alcohol, drugs and being out of control as cool anymore. I don't know specifically what changed this. Better social messaging, mass prescribing of ADHD meds, more competitive job markets.. Social media and multiplayer gaming have both ramped up competitive drives for what used to be more relaxing activities. Maybe the current optiate and meth epidemics are more effective as a warning than, say, the crack epidemic was for us? Kids have tech to glue them together(poorly in many cases, but it does fill the niche). Kids have internet subcultures to define their cultures now. Alternative lifestyles are much more accessible and take much less risk to participate in vs my childhood in the 80s. You don't need drugs to meet people or forge common identities. Kids are never bored anymore. I suspect there has never been a better time to be a kid in a boring small town. If you have bandwidth, you have culture. You have better shipping, home delivery, cheap imports, etc. Affluence seems more common than it used to be, even in our highly divided economy.
  • Gigachad 2y ago
    Gen Z here and people are definitely still doing drugs and drinking, but it does seem massively less. Just a personal anecdote, but there’s still a lot of house parties and stuff going on, and most people will have a couple drinks, some will have none, etc. But you are absolutely expected to handle yourself appropriately, getting too drunk or taking drugs you couldn’t handle isn’t tolerated and you’ll find yourself uninvited to future events. It is significantly more socially acceptable to drink no alcohol and take no drugs, than it is to get too drunk and act inappropriately.
    • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > It is significantly more socially acceptable to drink no alcohol and take no drugs, than it is to get too drunk and act inappropriately From what I’ve seen, this is partly a function of embedded social media. A drunk night at a friend’s isn’t just a bad decision, it reflects poorly on everyone in the room, including the host, in a semi-permanent and semi-public way.
• matt3210 2y ago
  TikTok is the drug of choice. I’ve found in my family people turn to drugs in downtime. Less downtime, less drugs
• pvaldes 2y ago
  Hum, If we hypothesize that drugs abuse could be ruled in part by genetics (some people are more prone to became addict than other), then the drug epidemics from 70's, 80's and 90's should had pruned a lot of this genes from the population. The current teen not doing drugs are mostly the sons of the former teen not being killed by drugs on its 20's (because they didn't do drugs, or were able to quit drugs before it was too late). I wonder if an effect of the Fentanyl epidemic could be traced in the genetic makeup of the future USA population, when the children of all the young that died (obviously) never appear in the population pyramid.
  • bgnn 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • pvaldes 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • paulryanrogers 2y ago
        Drugs don't usually kill or cause people to die or otherwise become unwilling or unable to reproduce? In fact they may remove inhibitions and lead to producing more children than those who abstain, at least on the whole. Anyway, I'm not sure and of that is true. It's just one set of possibilities.
• aucisson_masque 2y ago
  It says what but fail to explain the why. Some hypothesis in the comments about technology being the new 'drug' for teenager so they don't seek drugs, some other about how now everything is recorded so they can't go nuts, ... I don't buy it at all For me it's just a cultural shift, it's no more cool to be that guy that smoke weed or is drunk. That's all.
  • lfmunoz4 2y ago
    Might be a projection, i.e, you think teens do drugs to be cool. My group of friends we were legit curious read books like The Doors of Perceptions where we thought we would meet God or Aliens travel to astrospace. Any recent books like that? That made teens curious about drugs?
• lakomen 2y ago
  What's surprising about it? Teens are attracted by things that are forbidden to them. When you legalize drugs that falls off. Also enough information is available nowadays that doesn't come from some finger waving "you you you" morality zealot, but actual real life examples. For me at least the pull of cannabis and other drugs, never did real hard and addictive drugs like heroin, was that they were illegal and the effects weren't as bad as the lectures said they were. So I thought what's true about cannabis is also true about cocaine, lsd, psilocybin, xtc etc, but I've seen enough movies about heroin addicts going to waste. I was wrong about lsd and psilocybin and coke had no positive effect on me, except once I became Mr super cool monopoly player ans the other time I was full of energy, but I believe it was mixed with something other than coke. LSD was very uncontrollable, the 1st time was great, simple laugh and dance, the next time was awful and I suffered from it for many years. Psilocybin then, with friends cleared my mind and I was able to articulate myself and think clearly like never before. Amphetamine, I'll never forget the sour smell, but essentially a useless drug, except to stay awake. MDMA varying degrees of happiness and community. But the worst drug was nicotine. Useless, super addictive and really bad for your health. So hard to quit and it's everywhere and it's even worse now with all the e-cigarettes / vapes. Nicotine is an epidemic that needs to be eradicated. It's pure evil.
  • cactusplant7374 2y ago
    The withdrawal symptoms for nicotine are mild anxiety and cravings. It's not a real addiction by any stretch of the imagination. Also, vapes are much safer than cigarettes. [0] Some of the other formulations (tablets, lozenges, and pouches) are likely even safer but can affect oral health in some cases. I think the real danger is that people start to see LSD, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca as a doorway to another world when in reality it's akin to a dream state. It's delusional thinking and many people claim to be making serious, life changing decisions based on their experiences. That is scary. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/28/vaping-is-95-safer-than-smoking-claims-public-health-england https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/28/vaping-is-95...
• bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
  [dead]
• chiefalchemist 2y ago
  > surveys a nationally representative group of teens each year Self reported with nothing actual to verify (e.g., hair sample, school sewer water sample, etc.) Self-reported data is notorious for being unreliable. Why would this be any different? Editorial: What a waste of time and money. Hopefully taxpayers aren't paying for this.
• glass1122 2y ago
  Inflation. they cannot afford. This is happy news. not surprising news.
• p0w3n3d 2y ago
  it's been SWITCHed to another addiction. Pun intended
• yapyap 2y ago
  not that surprising given how everything is laced with fentanyl nowadays
• vitro 2y ago
  What about sugar addiction? Read recently an article in the news that that's what is becoming a problem, actually, much more than alcohol or cigarettes. Anecdotally, I see kids around drinking all kinds of sweetened beverages. My friend who cleans at a college picks every day full baskets of empty bottles. And in my school, some parents giving kids chocolates for a snack or kids buying themselves a pack of sweets from their pocket money.
• navaed01 2y ago
  I find the decline in alcohol consumption fascinating, how much of it is lack of sociability, being more aaare of its dangers, or just not willing to put up with the hangover. I was at a family event last night and all the cousins and their friends were using zins - tobacco pouches. I don’t see those mentioned in this data under nicotine in the article.
• cpcallen 2y ago
  Technology (e.g. highly addictive short-form video apps) seems like a likely explanation; fear of fentanyl is less plausible (it would not deter drinking or vaping). Surely the biggest factor, however, is just the interruption of social contagion? I strongly suspect that physically separating highschool students from their older peers for a couple of years meant that most of the older kids who were in to drugs etc. graduated and were not around to introduce their younger peers to these vices. It's the flip side of the phenomenon whereby many university societies shut down and either never reopened after the pandemic or struggled to get going again (examples I know about including swing dance clubs and solar car racing teams), because the only students with enough experience to teach their younger peers had by then all graduated.
  • Fade_Dance 2y ago
    The obvious reason for me is simply that everyone is much more health conscious now. That also plays much more of a role in social status than it did before. That also extends to showing off your healthy lifestyle on social media. Simply put, it's not as cool now.
  • Unearned5161 2y ago
    I like this thought process your brought up here! I hadn't put much time into thinking about the physical separation of generations in organizations like schools. A certain absence of physical heritage if you will... A mini extinction event Makes you think of other, perhaps smaller, things that may have gotten a gap in physical hand offs. Perhaps I'm generalizing too strongly here, but certainly someone that was a middle school teacher or something before and after covid might have some observations on little oddities that may have escaped the public eye.
    • hex3 2y ago
      [dead]
  • lexicality 2y ago
    smh kids be on they damn phone so much it's killing the drug dealing industry
• ThinkBeat 2y ago
  This is not accurate in what I see around me. Alcohol far less common among young people than it used to be. Cocaine and MDMA is flourishing. Ritalin like drugs is out there as well but I dont have much inside inot how common it is. That is a tiny tiny sample compared to the study so it does not in any way say that the study is wrong. It is just what I myself see and hear around me. (and what the police see a lot of )
• Eumenes 2y ago
  Yeah, cause they're all on SSRIs, mood stabilizers, legal meth via ADHD drugs, and beta blockers.
• dr_dshiv 2y ago
  In the future, will there be drugs specifically for kids? I find it weird that we don’t give kids coffee to help them focus on math. (But amphetamine is fine?) There is no evidence coffee is bad for kids. Psychedelics are so similar to kid level playfulness — and sometimes I think it could be helpful to help them see the big picture. Even cannabis— we know it’s controlled use is fine for kids, based on studies of usage for epilepsy, etc. Why do we wait till kids try it themselves under suspect circumstances rather than introducing it with intention? Just provoking some free thought.
  • meiraleal 2y ago
    > Why do we wait till kids try it themselves under suspect circumstances rather than introducing it with intention? if you are talking about a "kid" of 16, 17 years old, that's less problematic. But a parent shouldn't be part of all experiences of a young person, much less actively pushing things.
    • dr_dshiv 2y ago
      It’s pretty normal for parents to drink alcohol with their kids. Letting kids of 12+ drink in special circumstances is common in Europe. But wanting to toke with a 15 year old to make sure they have a good first experience - why is that absolutely taboo?
      • meiraleal 2y ago
        I don't think it is a taboo but not something we should normalize, not because of the responsible parents but because of the already irresponsible ones.
  • bdangubic 2y ago
    we already drug our kids with heavy drugs like ritalin so why not other less dangerous drugs…
  • stef25 2y ago
    Don't quit your day job just yet
• dartos 2y ago
  It’s probably because previous generations are becoming okay with drugs and millennials tend to be in favor of more permissive drug use. If parents think it’s cool, teens won’t. Pretty clear cut to me.
  • nvarsj 2y ago
    Yup this is exactly it. In the middle class UK even cocaine use is normalized. When your parents are smoking weed, doing lines of coke, and drinking excessive amounts of wine/beer, it's not exactly cool.
• jppope 2y ago
  The general sentiment around this phenomenon tends to be that a drop in drug/alcohol use is a positive social change... I'm pretty skeptical of that hypothesis. They also left out that having sex is on the decline and that is 100% a bad thing for our society.
• siruncledrew 2y ago
  I wonder if this decline means the public health campaigning and lessons about drinking/smoking/drugs prevention made a difference? As 1 data point, I have a cousin who is 17, and I am 35. As a 17 year old, she's been taught the dangers of cigarettes, that drinking is bad, and to avoid drugs for a number of years already. I'm not saying this is bad... it just feels like previous generations (Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, etc) did not really go into the informational side about the risks of drug use from a personal level, and moreso approached don't do drugs like an episode of COPS, which focused more on the risk as a scare tactic.
  • Ylpertnodi 2y ago
    I'm one of those people that growing up, was bombarded with negative talk about drink, drugs etc. So I took more. And will continue to do so. Guess my age? I give my kids my* advice. One had a 6 month period of getting fucked up, and now doesn't touch anything. Another, 'doesn't inhale', and has never touched alcohol. They have also learned to shut the fuck up when being lectured by some teacher that is parrotting (sp?) the party line, and they howl at the 'touch drugs snd you'll become an addict' government bullshit. My conclusion? 1/100: Scientists need to be young now to understand,
• FireSquid2006 2y ago
  I was in eighth grade at the start of the pandemic (college freshman now. Insane how the pandemic was 5 years ago). For a lot of people like myself, it was when I got into programming and found my career. However, I know lots of other people who basically sat on dopamine loop apps all day. Our habits from then continued on. While I can't prove this, I would suspect that this isnt due to any lack of vice, but because plenty of people have that feeling satisfied by short form algorithm apps.
  • astrobe_ 2y ago
    I think the pandemic had nothing to do with that except maybe that it served as a trigger for you or others. Plenty of people got hooked on programming in normal and peaceful times, with plenty of addictive distractions around - be it chess, reading, popular sports, Pokemon, movies, etc. Not everyone is interested in, or has the patience for, programming. You see its potential and what you could do with it, they see it as a chore better left to people who like that kind of stuff.
• ANewFormation 2y ago
  Simultaneously, pharmaceutical use rates have skyrocketed and continue growing. I'm curious if there is a causal relationship there. And I don't think this is a positive trend. Teens experimenting with weed, alcohol, and so on should not be encouraged but is, or was, just a part of life. Teens being on antidepressants, prescribed stimulants, and so on is rather quite sad.
  • Spivak 2y ago
    I think you have a warped view of antidepressants, it's not a sad thing, kinda the opposite actually. Medicating with drugs and alcohol is the much sadder timeline. Pre-antidepressants my life was fantastic on paper: stable job, close friends, good family, strong relationship, perfect health. But none of it mattered, there was no happiness, no sadness, no fulfillment, no contentment, it's hard to convey the total absence of literally any feeling at all toward anything. And I had no other frame of reference so I thought that's just how life was. I even went to years of therapy and that didn't help either. Eight months of antidepressants and I was a different person. I can't tell you how much regret I feel that I could have been happy for all those big important life moments— my first kiss, my first dance, my prom, winning states, graduating college.
    • temp0826 2y ago
      Did you consider you might have a warped view on what is supposed to make you happy? IME society will lie to you about that because it has wholly different goals.
      • ANewFormation 2y ago
        Happiness, to me, also seems like such a false goal. Happiness is, and should be, a fleeting sensation. I think the term we generally really mean when we say happiness is contentedness. Because that is more a state of being than some temporary sensation. And far from just a semantic difference, I think this opens up an entirely different life perspective because it's much more about controlling your response to things, particularly those outside your control than it is about pursuing some carrot of happiness that will always slip away as quickly as it comes. The Stoics referred to this state of mind as apatheia [1]. It's not apathy, which has the connotation of indifference, but rather the freedom from one's emotions so you can guide your life without being pulled in a million different, and oft irrational, ways by emotion. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheia
• coldtea 2y ago
  Recreational drug use implies some vitality. Teenagers increasingly being depressed social media/game addicts sitting alone in some room don't do recreational drugs.
  • TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
    There are definitely at least some youth (16 to 25 year olds) around these parts smoking marijuana, and of those the ones who look more like gaming addicts tend to be chronic[1] pot smokers. Probably depends at least to some extent on their socio-economic status, but then again I’ve known plenty of professionals who are gamers and pot smokers, meth users, heroin addicts. Having said that, if a persons drug use is chronic then it’s arguably no longer recreational. 1. chronic in the medical sense, as in chronic disease - usually a condition that lasts for at least three months.
• gklitz 2y ago
  I think one of the major obvious changes from generation to generation is that it’s now the norm that anyone who’s too drunk or acting up because of drugs will expect to be instantly live broadcast to the world and have those videos shared to anyone who knows them. Back 20 years ago if you got too drunk it was just a funny story people would retell, now at least in college it’s a fixed part of your online persona as anyone who knows you will have videos of it share with them.
• alex-korr 2y ago
  No wonder that the birthrates are in the dumpster. How are you supposed to get laid in the absence of social lubricants?