For years, critics of cannabis reform have leaned on the same warning: legal weed will lead to more teens using marijuana.
The data keeps telling a different story.
According to newly released, federally funded survey data compiled by researchers at the University of Michigan, teen marijuana use has continued its long-term decline and now sits at or near historic lows, even as more states regulate legal cannabis for adults.
What the latest numbers show
The findings come from the Monitoring the Future survey, one of the longest-running and most widely cited federal drug-use studies in the country, funded by the National Institutes of Health and conducted annually among 8th, 10th and 12th graders.
Between 2012 and 2025, the period that coincides with the rise of state-regulated adult-use cannabis markets, reported marijuana use among teens fell sharply across every age group.
- Among 12th graders, lifetime cannabis use dropped 23%.
- Among 10th graders, it fell 35%.
- Among 8th graders, it declined 17%.
Past-year use fell even more steeply, while past-month use dropped between 25% and 45%, depending on grade level.
These aren’t marginal changes. They’re sustained, multi-year declines.
The federal government isn’t disputing this
In a press release accompanying the data, Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, acknowledged the trend plainly.
“We are encouraged that adolescent drug use remains relatively low and that so many teens choose not to use drugs at all,” Volkow said, adding that continued monitoring remains essential.
Importantly, the data shows that from 2024 to 2025, cannabis use among teens did not increase in any grade level across lifetime, past-year or past-month measures. Among 8th graders, use actually declined further year over year.
Legalization didn’t reverse the trend
The timing matters.
Teen marijuana use has been falling steadily since 2012, the same year voters in Colorado and Washington approved the first adult-use cannabis laws. Since then, 24 states and Washington, D.C. have legalized marijuana for adults 21 and older.
If legalization were driving teen use upward, the signal would show up here.
It doesn’t.
Instead, today’s levels are far below the historic highs of the late 1970s, when more than half of U.S. high school seniors reported using cannabis in the previous year.
What about daily use?
Daily or near-daily cannabis use among teens remains rare.
Among 8th graders, daily use has hovered between 0.2% and 2% for decades. Among older students, daily use rose slightly during the pandemic years but has not returned to pre-2020 levels and remains statistically stable.
In fact, the percentage of 12th graders reporting daily cannabis use for a month or more over their lifetime declined significantly in 2025 compared to the year prior.
NORML’s takeaway
Commenting on the findings, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano was blunt.
“Sensational claims that adult-use legalization laws are linked with greater marijuana use by teens are simply not backed by government data,” Armentano said. “These findings ought to reassure lawmakers that cannabis access can be legally regulated in a manner that is safe, effective, and that does not inadvertently impact young people’s habits.”
That conclusion aligns with a growing body of peer-reviewed research from journals including JAMA Psychiatry, JAMA Pediatrics and The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, all of which have found no causal link between legalization and increased youth marijuana use.
The bigger picture
The Monitoring the Future survey also shows something broader at work: teens today are using fewer substances overall.
Rates of alcohol use, nicotine use and illicit drug use remain at or near historic lows, while abstention rates remain high. Researchers largely attribute the sharp drop that began in 2020 to pandemic-era changes in social behavior — but those lower levels have persisted.
In other words, legalization didn’t interrupt the decline. It happened alongside it.
What the numbers keep telling us
Teen marijuana use isn’t rising. It’s falling.
It has been for more than a decade, through multiple waves of legalization, retail expansion and cultural normalization. That doesn’t mean youth prevention efforts stop mattering. It means policy debates should start from reality, not fear.
The data is clear. The trend is steady. And the argument that legal cannabis inevitably leads to more teens using marijuana keeps losing its footing.
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