Young people’s relationship with drugs and alcohol changed during the pandemic.

Young people’s relationship with drugs and alcohol changed during the pandemic. YPulse’s health, drugs, and risky behavior research shows that marijuana usage among Millennials increased in response to COVID-induced stress, with 40% of Millennials saying they have experimented with marijuana (a seven point increase from 2019). Millennials have been fueling the mainstreaming of weed and the cannabis economy for years, and a new study by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) reveals that college students in the U.S. report smoking more weed and taking more hallucinogens while drinking less in 2020. Alcohol use and binge drinking have declined during the pandemic according to NIDA’s study, with 56% of college students reporting alcohol use in the past 30 days in 2020, compared to 62% in 2019, while binge drinking dropping from 32% in 2019 to 24% in 2020. A psychology professor at the University of Michigan says the shift away from binge drinking (and drinking less in general) is a “new historic low.” (Dazed)