National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Dr. Nora Volkow pointed to declining marijuana use among young people during a federal advisory council meeting this week, noting the decrease has come as more states have legalized marijuana for adults.
During the public portion of the 154th Meeting of the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse on September 8, Volkow discussed shifting substance use trends among younger Americans, including marijuana. She noted that youth cannabis use “is decreasing as more states legalize.”
The meeting was conducted virtually, with the public session taking place from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time and streamed through the National Institutes of Health’s VideoCast system.
Volkow’s comments align with recent federal data showing marijuana use among teenagers remains at or near historically low levels despite the continued expansion of adult-use legalization across the country.
According to the 2025 Monitoring the Future survey, funded by NIDA and conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, 8% of eighth graders, 16% of 10th graders and 26% of 12th graders reported using cannabis within the previous 12 months. The National Institutes of Health said the numbers were statistically unchanged from 2024, extending the relatively low rates recorded in recent years.
The longer-term trend shows a more substantial decline. Monitoring the Future researchers found that past-year marijuana use among 10th and 12th graders in 2025 had fallen to its lowest level in roughly three decades. Past-year use among eighth graders was approximately 8%, down from 11% immediately before the pandemic in 2020.
Other federal data released this year point in the same direction. The 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 8.7% of adolescents ages 12 to 17 reported using marijuana during the previous year, compared with 10.9% in 2021. Approximately 2.2 million adolescents reported past-year marijuana use in 2025.
The downward trend has coincided with a significant expansion of legal marijuana access for adults. Twenty-four states and Washington, D.C., currently allow or regulate marijuana for nonmedical adult use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
