SAMHSA released the 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health on July 27, 2026. The report estimates that 8.7 percent of adolescents ages 12 to 17 used cannabis in the past year, and 5.0 percent used it in the past month.

The federal report found that past-month cannabis use declined among adolescents and young adults from 2021 to 2025, while it increased among adults age 26 and older. Read the primary federal report.

A favorable national trend does not tell a family whether a particular teenager is using cannabis or experiencing harm. Calm, specific conversations about frequency, product strength, vaping, edibles, driving, sleep, school, anxiety, and other substance use remain more useful than assumptions.

Seek clinical help when use is frequent, hard to control, linked to impairment or safety problems, or accompanied by withdrawal, mood changes, declining function, or use despite harm.

Use the national estimate as context, not as a substitute for screening. Ask neutrally about route, THC concentration, frequency, reasons for use, co-use, driving, pregnancy, medications, mental health, and functional consequences.

Avoid interpreting a lower population prevalence as lower risk for adolescents with early, frequent, high-potency, or polysubstance exposure.

The report shows divergent age patterns. Adolescent and young-adult past-month use moved downward from 2021, while use among adults age 26 and older moved upward.

That divergence supports age-specific prevention and counseling. It also argues against treating national cannabis use as a single trend shared by every population.

NSDUH is not a randomized policy experiment. It cannot show that adult-use legalization, retail safeguards, education campaigns, social changes, or any other single factor caused the decline among young people.

The survey also does not measure the safety of a specific product, dose, route, or pattern of use, and self-report can be affected by recall and willingness to disclose.

Cannabis products differ markedly in THC concentration, CBD content, formulation, and route. Past-year use combines very different exposure patterns, from isolated use to frequent high-potency use.

Risk assessment should consider age at initiation, frequency, intoxication, driving, pregnancy, psychiatric symptoms, other substances, medication interactions, and evidence of impaired control or function.

Advocacy organizations may cite the decline as proof that legalization protects youth, while opponents may focus only on higher adult use. Neither conclusion follows automatically from descriptive national trends.

The most defensible reading is narrower: reported youth use declined during the measured period, adult patterns differed, and causal policy claims require separate analysis.

Policymakers should track prevalence together with frequency, product potency, route, cannabis use disorder, poisonings, impaired driving, school function, treatment need, and disparities. A single prevalence number cannot describe the full burden of harm.

Prevention should remain accurate and credible. Young people need clear information about impairment and risk without exaggerated claims that conflict with observable national trends.

Age-specific patterns matter more than one combined national cannabis-use number.

Prevalence, frequency, potency, impairment, and cannabis use disorder are different public-health measures.

This is encouraging news, but it should make our counseling more precise, not more complacent. The national trend suggests that rising adult access has not been accompanied by an inevitable rise in reported adolescent use during this period.

The clinical task is still individual. A teenager using high-potency products frequently, driving after use, struggling at school, or using cannabis to manage untreated anxiety needs attention even when the national average is moving in a favorable direction.

Four distinctions that matter