"The percentage of youth who have used marijuana in the past 12 months did not return to 2020 levels in 2022. Lifetime and past 12-month prevalence stayed steady or edged slightly upward in 2021, and prevalence in 2022 remained closer to 2021 than 2020 levels. Lifetime prevalence in 2022 was 11% in 8th grade, 24% in 10th grade, and 38% in 12th grade.
"The lower prevalence levels in 2021 and 2022 mark the first substantial change in past 12-month marijuana prevalence in more than a decade; previous to 2021 marijuana levels had hovered without any systematic trending for about a decade.
"Levels of annual marijuana use today are considerably lower than the historic highs observed in the late 1970s, when more than half of 12th graders had used marijuana in the past 12 months. This high point marked the pinnacle of a rise in marijuana use from relatively negligible levels before the 1960s.
"Daily marijuana use, defined as use on 20 or more occasions in the past 30 days, held steady in 2022 after substantial declines in 2021. In all grades 2022 levels remained below those in 2019 and 2020, when all surveys were collected before the start of the national social distancing policies on March 15, 2020.
"The prevalence of using marijuana daily for a month or more during one's lifetime is reported for 12th graders only. That prevalence was at 21% when first measured in 1982, declined sharply to just 8% by 1992, and rose back to 19% by 1997, followed by a long gradual decline to 12% by 2018, before leveling. It stood at 14% in 2022.
"2020 prevalence levels are not reported for daily marijuana use for a month due to low sample size that resulted from curtailed data collection due to the pandemic.
"All results from 2020 are from surveys completed before March 15, 2020, when national social distancing policies were implemented and the survey halted due to pandemic concerns."
Miech, R. A., Johnston, L. D., Patrick, M.E., O’Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. E., (2023). Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975–2022: Secondary school students. Monitoring the Future Monograph Series. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.
