DEA Admits Teen Cannabis Use Has Drastically Decreased Since 1995, Despite Dozens of States Legalizing Cannabis
- The DEA acknowledges that teen cannabis use has significantly declined over the past 30 years, despite widespread legalization of medical and adult-use marijuana across many states.
- Past-year cannabis use among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders dropped substantially between 1995 and 2025, with 8th graders falling from 15.8% to 7.6%, 10th graders from 28.7% to 15.6%, and 12th graders from 34.7% to 25.7%.
- This decline contradicts common arguments against legalization that predicted increased youth marijuana use as a result of loosened laws.
- The data cited by the DEA comes from the Monitoring the Future survey, a national study supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is acknowledging that teen cannabis use has fallen sharply over the past three decades, despite 40 states legalizing medical cannabis and 24 legalizing adult-use cannabis within that period. The admission comes through DEA’s Just Think Twice platform, where the agency includes an online quiz covering drug trends, overdose risks and substance use. One of the questions asks whether past-year marijuana use among adolescents and teens declined between 1995 and 2025. DEA says that statement is a fact.
According to the agency, past-year cannabis use among 8th grade students dropped from 15.8% in 1995 to 7.6% in 2025. Among 10th graders, it fell from 28.7% to 15.6%. For 12th graders, it declined from 34.7% to 25.7%.
Those figures undercut one of the most common arguments used by prohibitionists for years: that allowing marijuana to become legal at the state level would inevitably cause youth use to rise. DEA’s own materials now make clear that the opposite trend has played out over time.
That matters because the legalization movement expanded dramatically during the same period. California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis in 1996. Since then, 39 other states have followed with medical marijuana laws, and 24 states have also legalized cannabis for adult use.
In other words, marijuana laws have loosened in dozens of states since the mid-1990s, while teen use has moved in the other direction.
DEA says the figures come from the Monitoring the Future survey, a long-running national study backed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.