Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

A question for older folks: what did drugs do for us? Why did we do them?

For me, drugs were:

- socialization. I met a lot of friends through alcohol & drugs and they became the social glue for my circle. Alcohol & drugs became a large part of my identity.

- a way to cope with boredom. Every day is a party when you're high.

- identity. In my generation, drugs were mostly cool and associated with iconoclasts, artists, etc.

Young people's culture changed. I don't think kids see alcohol, drugs and being out of control as cool anymore. I don't know specifically what changed this. Better social messaging, mass prescribing of ADHD meds, more competitive job markets.. Social media and multiplayer gaming have both ramped up competitive drives for what used to be more relaxing activities. Maybe the current optiate and meth epidemics are more effective as a warning than, say, the crack epidemic was for us?

Kids have tech to glue them together(poorly in many cases, but it does fill the niche). Kids have internet subcultures to define their cultures now. Alternative lifestyles are much more accessible and take much less risk to participate in vs my childhood in the 80s. You don't need drugs to meet people or forge common identities.

Kids are never bored anymore. I suspect there has never been a better time to be a kid in a boring small town. If you have bandwidth, you have culture. You have better shipping, home delivery, cheap imports, etc. Affluence seems more common than it used to be, even in our highly divided economy.

Gen Z here and people are definitely still doing drugs and drinking, but it does seem massively less.

Just a personal anecdote, but there’s still a lot of house parties and stuff going on, and most people will have a couple drinks, some will have none, etc. But you are absolutely expected to handle yourself appropriately, getting too drunk or taking drugs you couldn’t handle isn’t tolerated and you’ll find yourself uninvited to future events. It is significantly more socially acceptable to drink no alcohol and take no drugs, than it is to get too drunk and act inappropriately.

  getting too drunk or taking drugs you couldn’t handle isn’t tolerated
  and you’ll find yourself uninvited to future events. It is significantly
  more socially acceptable to drink no alcohol and take no drugs, than it
  is to get too drunk and act inappropriately.

That doesn't sound all that different than previous generations. SXE's been a thing since the 80s. Not everyone is Bret Easton Ellis. I don't think that attitudes have changed all that much, but circumstances have. Inflation and wage stagnation mean less discretionary spending. Fentanyl analogues mean street drugs are significantly more lethal than in generations past. Legalized marijuana means there's less mystery and motivation to experiment further.

I've interacted with a number of Gen Zers in their 20s and Millenials in their early 30s, some in passing and some on a more regular basis. In my experience that cohort spans the gamut. Some are teetotalers, sure. Most use drugs (cocaine, ketamine, assorted off-label prescription stuff, marijuana, etc.) at least occasionally, some daily. It really doesn't seem all that different from when I was their age. Excluding peer pressure, most of the societal ills that drove my peers to experiment with drugs still apply. Conversely I've seen a lot of my peers start to dial back drug and alcohol use as they get older.