Beer Marketer's Insights - Teen Drinking Remains at Record Lows as Broader Abstention Grows

Once feared by public health experts nationwide, there's still "no sign of post-pandemic rebound" years removed from sharp Covid-era drops in teen substance use, authors of the annual Monitoring the Future report wrote. And ongoing declines in the use of the most common drugs by American youth are most apparent for alcohol. Lifetime and past-year prevalence of any alcohol use reached record lows again in 2025 among 8th, 10th and 12th graders, MTF results show. Self-reported past-month drinking by each age group is down by 50-75% over the last 20 years. As declines in teen drinking evolved into declines in college drinking and even more recent moderation by the youngest legal age adults, the cultural shifts underpinning these trends appear to be impacting rates and volume of total US alcohol consumption. Yet no major policy intervention precipitated any of those shifts. Further, concerns that teens may replace alcohol with other drugs, namely cannabis, appear to be overblown, these surveys suggest. That said, the gap between the prevalence of alcohol and cannabis use has slimmed and all but disappeared in certain age groups.Past-Month Drinking Reported by Stable 22% of 12th Graders, 11% Got Drunk Most measures of alcohol consumption by 8th, 10th and 12th graders declined further in 2025, MTF results show, even if by relatively small amounts compared to 2024. One of the few exceptions is the rate of any drinking in the past 30 days by 12th graders, which ticked up by a slight half-point to just over 22% this year. But the long-term decline is still stark: down by over 1/3 in the past decade and by over half since 2005.Not only is teen drinking way down, but drunkenness and binge drinking are down even more steeply. Of those past-month 12th grade drinkers, about half reported being drunk. It was closer to 60% of a larger group of teen drinkers a decade ago and close to 2/3 of an even bigger group in 2005. This year, 29.4% of high school seniors said they had ever been drunk, down from close to 50% a decade ago and close to 60% decades ago. Fewer than 9% of 12th graders reported recent binge drinking (defined as consuming 5+ drinks "in a row" in the past two weeks), down by half in 10 years and 2/3 since 2005.Alcohol Use Continue to Drop More Steeply Among Younger Teens Rates of any alcohol consumption in the past month declined further among both 8th and 10th graders. Prevalence fell to 10.4% among 10th graders, down by almost one point in one year, down by over half in 10 years and by 2/3 in 20 years. And just 4.3% of 8th graders reported any alcohol consumption in the past month, down from about 5% the prior year, almost 10% in 2015 and over 17% in 2005, a staggering 75% reduction.Fewer than 40% of 10th graders who consumed any alcohol in the past month reported being drunk, down from closer to half in 2015 and over half in 2005. Among 8th graders, fewer than one in four past-month drinkers said they were drunk in 2025 surveys. That's down from about one in three in both 2015 and 2005. About 15% of 10th graders and 5% of 8th graders reported ever being drunk, down from 42% and almost 20% in 2005. Binge drinking among these younger teens has all but stopped, down by over 90% in the past 20 years to just 1.5% of 10th graders and a tiny 0.6% of 8th graders. Gap Between Drinking and Cannabis Use Mostly Closed Teen cannabis use remains relatively stable compared to alcohol consumption. Prevalence of past month use is generally down from highs between 2010 and 2020, but held closer to even among 10th and 12th graders in the last couple of years. Two decades ago, teens were two to three times as likely to report drinking in the past month as they were to report using cannabis. Since then, those gaps shrank from 27 points to just 5 points among 12th graders, from 14 points to just 1 point among 10th graders and from over 10 points to 0.3 points among 8th graders.Reported Hemp Use Not as Large as Last Year; Vaping Down, Mostly; Pouches Emerge Authors of the MTF surveys started asking about hemp-derived cannabinoids for only the second time in 2025, expanding the question to include "any hemp-derived psychoactive product." And 9.2% of 12th graders reported any usage in the past year, with smaller groups of 10th and 8th graders saying so. But those figures were lower than 2024 responses about Delta-8. That said, part of the concern about hemp-derived cannabinoids is a lack of awareness about what the products are and it's unclear how well youth differentiate between hemp-derived THC products and cannabis.Teen reports of vaping cannabis are more common. About 16% of 12th graders reported doing so in the past year, 12% in the past month, each down steadily since 2022. (Note: that suggests about 70% of monthly cannabis users of this age group do so by vaping, at least.) Vaping nicotine or e-cigarette use is also down substantially from a boom just prior to the pandemic. Still 20% of 12th graders and 14% of 10th graders vaped in the past year. And past-month vaping ticked up slightly to 16% of 12th graders and 10% of 10th graders. Instead, nicotine pouches emerged as a fast-growing alternative for teens as they are "readily concealable," MTF authors noted. Almost 7% of high school seniors reported using nicotine pouches in the past year, up from less than 3% just two years ago. In all, any nicotine use in the past month jumped from 17% among 12th graders a year ago to 21.8%.Abstention is In, Reported at "Record Levels" In perhaps the best news of all, the lead headline for this year's report is not about the substances that teens are using, but what they're not using. MTF found "abstention at record levels," authors wrote, citing results for the prevalence of teens who say they have not used the three most common drugs &mdash; alcohol, cannabis and nicotine. Over 90% of 8th graders, over 80% of 10th graders and 2/3 of 12th graders report total abstention in the past month. Furthermore, reports of lifetime abstention by 8th graders jumped from over half to almost 3/4 in the last two decades. It doubled among 10th and 12th graders, from 30% to 60% and 20% to 40%, respectively.Energy Drinks a More Recent Watchout Illicit drugs and underage alcohol or nicotine use may not be the concerns they once were. Instead, teen use of a completely legal product with no age restrictions has grown considerably in the last 10 years, MTF results show. Daily use of energy drinks or shots was reported by more 12th graders (23.4%) than past-month drinking, more than double the 9% that reported daily energy drink consumption a decade ago. And younger teens aren't far behind. Over 20% of 10th graders reported drinking energy drinks every day, up from 8.4% in 2015, while 17.5% of 8th graders said so, up less sharply in that time. (Ironically, younger teens were more likely than older ones to consume energy drinks or shots daily or near daily between 2010 and 2016.)Cheers,References1 Miech, RA, Johnston, LD, Patrick, ME, O'Malley, PM, "Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2025: Overview and Key Findings for Secondary School Students," University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, December 2025

Teen Drinking Remains at Record Lows as Broader Abstention Grows

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