A recent study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse has shown that hallucinogen use among young adults has jumped to record-high rates in 2021. Use among Americans from 19 to 30 years old rose significantly for cannabis and psychedelics, and for vaping and alcohol — including binge drinking (5 or more drinks in a row) and high-intensity drinking (10 or more drinks). Marijuana use has soared nearly 50% over 10 years. Cheddar News breaks down this report.


Closing Bell

Study Shows Jump in Cannabis, Alcohol Use Among Young Adults

and a new study finding that young adults use cannabis and hallucinogens at record high rates in 2021. The national Institute of drug abuse surveyed americans who are 19 to 30 years old. And the agency also finding that vaping jumped significantly among the age group last year after it started to plateau during the first year of the pandemic. So joining me now is my special guest co host for the hour, Chloe Aiello. There you are. Okay. So what are some of the top findings in this study? So, Kristen to your point, what you said there? The findings looked at data in 2021 and it found a pretty significant jumps in use for things like cannabis, psychedelics, vaping and alcohol. So past year marijuana use among youth, this is the 19-30. The range 43% reported they used it past month use was about 29% of young adults. Daily cannabis use also significantly increased during the time period to about eight to about 11% there with psychedelics, which is a super interesting one. We had about 8% of young adults reporting past year hallucinogen use, which is actually the highest that we've ever seen since. The data was first starting to be collected in 1988. That compares to about 5% of young adults in 2016 and just about 3% in 202011. We also saw rates of vaping jump back up again after they had been sort of leveled off in 2020. That first pandemic year there, they started kind of rebounding since then and alcohol use. Now this one is particularly concerning for experts. We actually had seen binge drinking returning to pre pandemic levels. Now, binge drinking is having five or more drinks in a row. Um And we saw high intensity drinking, which I hadn't heard before looking at this study, but that's actually 10 or more drinks in a row. That was at its highest level since they first started measuring in 2005. Okay, that's a little bit scary. Especially that high intensity drinking Khloe. I hadn't heard of that either. But why do experts think use of cannabis, alcohol and nicotine in the form of vaping has been surging so much? Sure. Well actually I want to point out one more thing to the they're actually declines in cigarette smoking and opioid use outside of medical purposes. So those are actually a couple of bright spots in this report. But as I mentioned, we did see vaping increase and I had a chance to speak to Dr Nora Volkow, who is actually the director of the National Institute on Drug abuse or Nayda. Uh so she said she was looking at this year, particularly 2021 as a time period of stress management. So obviously this was still a pandemic year. People were dealing with stressors like um losing loved ones, social isolation, economic uncertainty and this was causing some people to turn to substances to relieve that stress. Now alcohol specifically cannabis use and vaping and nicotine can directly be related to stress management. These are three substances that people typically use but also when it comes to cannabis. The reason that this is rising could have also something to do with the fact that we've seen cannabis legalization becoming more widespread. We know of course that we have 19 states and D. C. With adult use legalized as well as medical use legalized under over a number of states as well. Uh And Dr Volkow said that when people see something as legal like with nicotine with tobacco and now with cannabis it kind of reduces the risk profile at least in people's minds. They think if this is legal it can't be that harmful. So I'm gonna use it. So what about psychedelics? Do you think that psychedelic uses surging? What do the experts have to say? Well this one's interesting too and this could actually be getting kind of like a halo effect in the way that cannabis is obviously we haven't seen psychedelic um legalization or decriminalization at nearly the level that we're seeing cannabis legalization across the U. S. But there is a movement to decriminalize and legalize these substances, particularly with psilocybin. Uh So we have seen for example Oregon leading the nation when voters approved a ballot measure in 2020 to legalize and regulate psilocybin therapy. We've seen voters in cities like denver Oakland Washington D. C. Pull back on enforcing uh you know crackdowns on psychedelics there. We've even seen politically disparate states like in Utah for example Connecticut new Jersey texas. Even considering decriminalization measures or at least pulling back on these. And we have a wide range of research to researchers are looking at psychedelics like psilocybin for example, for everything from combating addiction to dealing with end of life existential dread uh and also with treatment resistant depression as we've seen with M. D. M. A. And ketamine for example. So all of this kind of positive press coverage these movements to decriminalize at the state level is changing the public opinion on psychedelics in a way that we really haven't seen since the 19 sixties. So I think that that could possibly be having an effect here interesting. Um this is so fascinating Chloe this study. So what implications could this have? Well we know that cannabis for example isn't quite as dangerous as other Schedule one drugs. To the point where we are seeing states legalize it. But Dr Volkow was really wanted to emphasize that the group that we're looking at in terms of use of all these substances is 19 to 30 year olds, obviously adolescents when you're younger in high school elementary school, that's a very vulnerable time for kids to be using substances. But people don't really think of this transition from young adulthood from adolescence to young adulthood as a particularly vulnerable time. But Dr Volkow insisted that it is so brains are still developing at this time. So there are risks associated with consuming substances um you know with high potency THC for example we're starting to see more research out suggesting that there could be a slate of negative side effects for consumption cannabis hyperemesis for example it causes recurrent vomiting in regular and heavy users of cannabis, cannabis cannabis abuse for example addiction is one understudied area that can potentially result in heavy use of cannabis. And of course we are starting to see research that extremely high potency cannabis especially in use can be related or associated with bouts of psychosis and this can lead to you know psychological problems throughout life. So obviously a big limit in all of this is that there isn't a ton of research on this because it is a Schedule one drug. So experts are really raising alarm bells to see just substances across the board spiking in use among young adults and um Chloe you did a piece right for the web cheddar dot com. People can check it out there. Yes, they absolutely can. They will be later on this afternoon. Amazing. Well thank you for breaking it down for us here on live tv again, especially guest host for the hour Chloe I yellow Chloe, I'll see you on the other side of this break. How about that