Noncontinuation of Substance Use By Young People

"One indication of the proportion of people who try a drug but do not continue to use it can be derived from calculating the percentage of those who ever used a drug in their lifetime (once or more) but did not use it in the 12 months preceding the survey.26 We use the word “noncontinuation” rather than “discontinuation” to describe this situation because the latter term might imply discontinuing an established pattern of use, whereas our current operational definition includes noncontinuation by experimental users as well as established users.

"Table 6-5a shows how the noncontinuation rates observed for the various classes of drugs have changed over time among 12th graders. These rates and the changes in them over the years are shown in Table 6-5a for lifetime use; in Table 6-5b, the noncontinuation rates are based on 12th graders who are “experienced” (i.e., used the drug ten or more times in their lifetime). An important caution is that these estimates are based on students who have ever used specific drugs, and the estimates can vary substantially from year to year for drugs with lower prevalence and thus small numbers of cases.

"• The noncontinuation rate for nicotine vaping in 2024 was 33%, which has been steady in recent years (it compares with 30% in 2022 and 31% in 2021). This level represents more than a doubling since 2019, when it was 14%. Since 2019, the prevalence of nicotine vaping plateaued and then began to decline. These results suggest that in recent years the decline in adolescent nicotine vaping partly stems from the increasing percentage of students who discontinued use after initiating use.

"• Noncontinuation had to be defined differently for cigarettes because respondents are not asked to report on their cigarette use in the past year. The noncontinuation rate is thus defined as the percentage of 12th graders who say they ever smoked in their lifetime who also reported not smoking at all during the past 30 days rather than the past year. In 2024, noncontinuation of cigarettes continued its long term increase and was at 83%, which is the highest level for cigarettes recorded over the life of the study. In 1999—the first and lowest measure we have—it was 46%.

"• Noncontinuation of smokeless tobacco significantly decreased by 12 points in 2024, from 68% in 2023 to 56% in 2024. This decline corresponds with an increase in the use of nicotine pouches, which doubled in use from 2023 to 2024 among 12th grade students.

"• The noncontinuation rate for marijuana vaping has doubled in the past five years, from 12% in 2019 to 26% in 2024. It now has the same level of noncontinuation as for marijuana use overall (discussed immediately below). Since 2019, the prevalence of marijuana vaping has plateaued after marked increases in 2018 and 2019. As with nicotine vaping, these results suggest that in recent years the deceleration in adolescent marijuana vaping partly stems from the increasing percentage of adolescents who discontinued use after initiating use.

"• Marijuana use overall—that is, without the question specifying any specific method of use—has one of the lowest rates of noncontinuation of all drugs (Table 6-5a). In 2024, the noncontinuation rate was only 25% and has hovered in a narrow window between 18% and 26% over the last two decades.

During the first half of the 1990s, marijuana noncontinuation rates fell by half, from a high of 35% in 1991 to a low of 17% in 1995, indicating that the substantial increase in prevalence during this period represented not only an increase in youth adopting marijuana use, but also sharply lower levels of users desisting from it. Previous to 1992, noncontinuation had gradually increased since the early 1980s, and with these higher rates of noncontinuation came a decrease in marijuana prevalence during those same years.

"• Alcohol has had the lowest rate of noncontinuation in every year of the survey, and in 2024 it was 14%. In previous years, it increased gradually from about 1988 (when it was 7%) to 1993 (when it was 12%), perhaps reflecting the changed norms regarding its use (see Chapter 8). These norms, in turn, may have reflected both the influence of a number of states changing the legal drinking age and a greater emphasis being placed on the dangers of drunk driving."