Limited Supply Doesn’t Slow Adolescent Marijuana, Alcohol Use During Pandemic

New data shows that a sharp decrease in the availability of alcohol and marijuana during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic did not lead to a decline in their use by adolescents.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan based on data from NIDA’s Monitoring the Future survey. Findings were published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Students in 12th grade were surveyed between mid-July and mid-August 2020 as a follow-up to the standard MTF survey conducted each spring. Of the 3,770 students who completed the spring survey, 582 also filled out the summer version.

Prior to the pandemic (spring survey), 76% of students said marijuana was “fairly” or “very” easy to access. By the summer, that figure dropped to 59%. For alcohol, the percentage of students reporting fairly or very easy access plummeted from 86% to 62%. The decreases in availability year-over-year were the largest reported for both marijuana and alcohol in the history of the survey, which dates back to 1975. (For comparison, the previous largest drops for marijuana and alcohol availability year-over-year were 2% and 1% respectively.)

Despite their availability being significantly restricted, marijuana and alcohol use among adolescents dropped only slightly. Pre-pandemic, 23% of respondents reported using marijuana within the previous 30 days. During the pandemic, that figured dropped only to 20%. Binge drinking within the prior 2 weeks declined from 17% of respondents to 13% during the pandemic.

“These findings suggest that reducing adolescent substance use through attempts to restrict supply alone would be a difficult undertaking,” Richard A. Miech, PhD, lead author of the paper and team lead of the Monitoring the Future study at the University of Michigan, said in a news release. “The best strategy is likely to be one that combines approaches to limit the supply of these substances with efforts to decrease demand, through educational and public health campaigns.”