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. 2021 Sep 1:226:108822.
doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2021.108822. Epub 2021 Jun 24.

Adolescent drug use before and during U.S. national COVID-19 social distancing policies

Richard Miech  1 , Megan E Patrick  2 , Katherine Keyes  3 , Patrick M O'Malley  2 , Lloyd Johnston  2
Affiliations

Adolescent drug use before and during U.S. national COVID-19 social distancing policies

Richard Miech et al. Drug Alcohol Depend. .

Abstract

Background: How adolescent substance use and perceived availability of substances have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic remain largely unknown. Substantial reduction in availability of substances would present a unique opportunity to consider the supply-side hypothesis that reductions in drug availability will lead to reductions in drug prevalence.

Methods: Longitudinal data come from Monitoring the Future and are based on responses from 582 adolescents who were originally surveyed as part of a national sample of 12th grade students in early 2020, one month before social distancing policies began. They were surveyed again after social distancing policies were implemented, in the summer of 2020.

Results: Perceived availability of marijuana and alcohol declined across the two survey waves at the largest levels ever recorded in the 46 years of the project, by an absolute 17 %, p < .01 and 24 %, p < .01, respectively. Despite these declines, prevalence levels did not significantly change across the two waves for marijuana use in the past 30 days or for binge drinking in the past two weeks. Perceived availability of vaping devices significantly declined, from 73 % to 63 %, as did nicotine vaping prevalence in the past 30 days, from 24 % to 17 %.

Conclusions: Perceived availability of marijuana, alcohol, and vaping devices declined at historic rates during the pandemic of 2020. Lack of accompanying reductions in prevalence for marijuana and binge drinking demonstrates the substantial challenges facing a supply-side approach to the reduction of adolescent use of these substances.

Keywords: Adolescents; Alcohol; COVID-19 pandemic; Marijuana; Nicotine vaping; Prevalence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Prevalence of Substance Use and Substance Availability Before and During the 2020 Pandemic, by Level of Social Distancing in Summer of 2020. aAssessed between February 11 and March 15, 2020; bAssessed between July 16 and August 10, 2020; cQuestion asked of a randomly-selected one-third of sample as baseline and all respondents at follow-up; dQuestion asked of a randomly-selected one-sixth of sample at baseline and of all respondents at follow up.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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