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The largest federal survey on alcohol consumption confirmed continued declines in underage drinking alongside relatively consistent levels of adult use. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, fielded to tens of thousands of Americans aged 12 and up, once again found a substantial decline in the prevalence of past month alcohol consumption by 12-20 year olds. While drinking by teens (age 12-17) dipped slightly, the decline appeared to be driven by changes among college-aged adults. Notably, binge drinking by the same cohort of 18-25 year olds also declined substantially since 2021, NSDUH results show. 15% Decline in Underage Drinking in 3 Years Measures of underage drinking continued to decline, fully putting to bed the feared bounce back in consumption after the Covid-19 pandemic. Reports of any past month alcohol consumption by 12-20 year olds steadily declined from 15.6% in 2021 to 13.3% in 2024. The 2.3-point decrease represented an almost 15% drop in underage drinking in just three years. Changes to the way SAMHSA conducts the survey starting in 2021 prevent direct comparison to older results, the agency reminds. It's still worth noting that underage drinking was about twice as common just 15 years ago. Fewer than 8% of underage youth reported any binge drinking in the past month, down one percentage point and almost 12% since 2021. Heavy alcohol use barely budged, but still moved the right direction: down slightly. (NSDUH defines binge drinking as 4+ drinks on the same occasion for female respondents, 5+ for males. Heavy use is defined as 5+ instances of binge drinking in the past month.)Young Adult Consumption Off Slightly as Initiation Delayed Consumption by young adults, aged 18-25, also declined, NSDUH results show, but not as quickly. In each of the last two years, fewer than half of this age group reported any drinking in the past month, including just 47.5% in 2024, down over 3 points from 2021. Note that this group includes the oldest underage adults as well (18-20 year olds).Additional NSDUH results also suggest a shift toward later initiation of alcohol use. In 2024, 6.7% of 18-25 year olds reported having their first drink within the last year. That's up a bit from 6.2% in 2021. It's also greater than the 6.4% of 12-17 year olds who said they had their first drink in the past year, down from over 7% a few years ago. For the past few years, 73-74% of respondents aged 12 and up reported having their first drink before age 21, but that dipped slightly to 70.7% in 2024.Little by little, folks are delaying their first drink. But there hasn't been a meaningful change in the prevalence of drinking among older adults. Just over half of adults over 25 said they drank at all in the past month in 2024, barely below 2021 levels. While the 2024 result came in slightly lower than usual, the figure has been between 51% and 55% since 2002.Harmful Consumption Patterns Reported by Fewer Adults, Especially College-Aged Reports of both binge drinking and heavy use declined substantially among 18-25 year olds and older adults, these NSDUH results show. The fact that binge drinking among college-aged adults is now declining steadily, including a more sizable drop in 2024, is particularly encouraging given that overconsumption among college students had been intractable for many years. The prevalence of the practice among this age group dipped 2 points in one year to 26.7%. (A decade ago, it was close to 40% in earlier versions of the survey.) Binge drinking among older adults also declined slightly, reported by 21% of adults aged 26+. Heavy use is increasingly rare among each group, the results show.More Older Adults Pick Up Cannabis as Youth Use Wanes A relatively small number of adults over age 25 reported having their first drink in the past year. But around a million of these older adults said they used cannabis for the first time in the last year, according to 2024 NSDUH results. Past month cannabis use ticked up past 15% of 26+ adults, up by almost 23% since 2021. (These figures are about 3x what they were in 2010-2013, prior to the steady increase in states that legalized adult use cannabis.)But cannabis use among younger adults has held basically steady, hanging right around a quarter of 18-25 year olds the past four years in a row. That means past month cannabis use is far less common than alcohol consumption among these college-aged adults. It is now only slightly less common than binge drinking in this age group.At 10.5%, the prevalence of underage cannabis use in 2024 was about even with 2021, but down slightly from 11-12% in 2022-2023. Among Americans who use either cannabis or tobacco, vaping is significantly more common among youth. Over 70% of 12-17 year olds who reported either any cannabis or any tobacco use opted for vaping devices to do so, NSDUH results demonstrate. Only about a third of adults over 25 who use cannabis vape, and fewer than 20% of adults in this age group who use tobacco do so by vaping alone.Cheers,

Underage Drinking, College-Aged Binge Drinking Fall Further, NSDUH Finds

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