Survey Shows Marijuana Use Dropping Among Colorado Teens

Marijuana consumption among Colorado high school students dropped significantly from 2019 to 2021, according to a survey conducted by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

The CDPHE’s Healthy Kids Colorado Survey is conducted every other year to monitor teen drug and alcohol use, mental health, bullying, sexual activity and other adolescent issues. After contacting nearly 107,000 students at 340 schools in 51 counties across the state, the survey found that 13.3 percent of high school students admitted to using marijuana once or more in the past thirty days, down from 20.6 percent in 2019 and 21.2 percent in 2015.

In 2019, 35.8 percent of high-schoolers said they had used marijuana at least once in their lives. By 2021, that number had dropped to 26.1 percent, the CDPHE notes.

According to data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the national rate of marijuana use within the past thirty days among twelfth-graders across the country was 19.5 percent in 2021; it was 10.1 percent among tenth-graders.