Percent of high school seniors reporting use in the past month, by gender and race, 1975-2019

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Serving Children, Families, and Communities

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Self-report Behaviors

Q:	Do trends in past month use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana among high school seniors vary by gender and race?
A:	Self-reported use of alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana/hashish followed similar patterns across gender and race.

Alcohol
Cigarettes
Marijuana/hashish

Notes: * To derive percentages for each racial subgroup, data for the specified year and the previous year have been combined to increase subgroup sample sizes and thus provide more stable estimates.

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Past month use of alcohol and marijuana was higher for males than females each year since 1975.
Since 1975, self report use of alcohol and cigarettes was higher for white students than their black and Hispanic peers. While this pattern was true for marijuana use for most of the 1976-2019 period, in recent years, past month use of marijuana was higher for black and Hispanic students than that of white students.

Internet citation: OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book. Online. Available: https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/offenders/qa03512.asp?qaDate=2019. Released on May 15, 2020.

Data Source: Adapted from Johnston, L. D., Miech, R. A., O'Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., Schulenberg, J. E., & Patrick, M. E. (2020). Demographic subgroup trends among adolescents in the use of various licit and illicit drugs, 1975-2019 (Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper No. 94). Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.