Surge of Teen Vaping Finally Has Leveled Off.

• Position: MTF SURVEY

Findings released from the Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey of substance use behaviors and related attitudes among teens in the U.S. indicate that levels of nicotine and marijuana vaping did not increase from 2019 to 2020, although they remain high.

In the four years since the survey began including questions on nicotine and marijuana vaping, use of these substances among teens has increased to markedly high levels. From 2017-19, the percentage of teenagers who said they vaped nicotine in the past 12 months roughly doubled for eighth-graders from 7.5% to 16.5%; for 10th-graders from 15.8% to 30.7%; and for 12th-graders from 18.8% to 35.3%. In 2020, the rates held steady at a respective 16.6%, 30.7%, and 34.5%.

"The rapid rise of teen nicotine vaping in recent years has been unprecedented and deeply concerning since we know that nicotine is highly addictive and can be delivered at high doses by vaping devices, which may also contain other toxic chemicals that may be harmful when inhaled," says Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "It is encouraging to see a leveling off of this trend though the rates still remain very high."

Past-year vaping of marijuana also remained steady in 2020, with 8.1% of eighth-graders, 19.1% of 10th-graders, and 22.1% of 12th-graders reporting past-year use, following a two-fold increase over the past two years. Additionally, daily marijuana vaping decreased among 10th-graders from three percent in 2019 to 1.7% in 2020.

Survey results also show that...