The 2019 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey results, released
in December (here),
confirm the sharp decline in high school cigarette smoking that I reported in my
recent analysis of the 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) (here). The decline in smoking in both surveys coincides
with increased vaping.
The rates of current (in the past 30 days) use of various
drugs among high school seniors are seen in the chart. The MTF recently added vaping categories
(labeled on the right) to those for conventional agents like cigarettes,
alcohol and marijuana (labeled on the left).
The rate of current smoking plummeted in 2019 to 5.7%, from
7.6% the year before, and 9.7% in 2017.
That represents an astounding 70% drop from 2011, when teens began
vaping (evidence here).
The most important graph lines represent current use of
intoxicating drugs, notably
marijuana, which was used by 22.3% of high school seniors in 2019; it has tracked
in this range since 1995. They also
still used alcohol – which was barely below 30% for the first time (29.3%) –
and many still got drunk (17.5%) in the past month.
Current vaping of any or no drug increased in 2019 to 31%,
reflecting use of nicotine (26%) and/or flavors alone (10.7%). The MTF began analyzing JUUL use, finding
that it was currently used by 20.8% of seniors.
The big news in the MTF survey is the sharp increase in
current marijuana vaping – 14%, or almost double the year before. This finding underscores the inexplicable
decision by NYTS administrators to omit the marijuana vaping question in the
2019 NYTS after using it in prior surveys.
The MTF provides context for the government’s obsession with
flavor bans. Flavors were vaped far less
frequently than marijuana and nicotine.
The survey confirms that the main reason teens vape is to get a buzz; flavors
are secondary. The federal ban on
flavors is therefore simply a feel-good measure that will have little impact.
