National survey: Mass. teen drug use second-highest in U.S.

NORFOLK COUNTY — Last fall, The National Center for Health Statistics reported that more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses during the 12-month period ending in April 2021, an increase of 28.5 percent over the same period the year before.

The authors of a new state-by-state survey of the U.S drug problem say improvement is not likely in the short term.

“Despite the country’s best efforts to really combat things like drug use and especially the opioid epidemic, in conjunction with increasing numbers and the pandemic, we have seen this become a worse and worse problem,” said Jill Gonzalez, an analyst with WalletHub. “And it really was exacerbated by COVID-19 from state to state. There were very few outliers there.”

Using data from numerous government sources – including the U.S. Census, the CDC, the FBI and the FDA – WalletHub came up with a 50-state (plus District of Columbia) ranking of illicit drug use.

Massachusetts ranks in the top one-third of states at #15 – with West Virginia taking the #1 spot and Minnesota the last. The rankings are tied to three main metrics: drug use and addiction, law enforcement of drug laws and health issues associated with drug use – including the availability of rehabilitation.

“Some things here were weighted more than others, just in terms of relevance,” said Gonzalez. “What was weighted the most, which was given a quadruple weight, was overdose deaths per capita. Some things that were given triple weight were the share of adults who used illicit drugs in the past month and the share of adults who couldn’t get treatment for drug use in the past year.”

Gonzalez said factors given double weight included the number of teens who used illicit drugs in the past month, the number of opioid pain reliever prescriptions and the number of substance abuse treatment facilities per capita.

Massachusetts’ high ranking on the survey isn’t surprising to Jennifer Knight-Levine, who heads the S.A.F.E. Coalition, a Norfolk County group specializing in substance abuse issues..

“Many folks were at home during the pandemic. Their access to doctors, access to support systems really decreased,” she said. “And certainly for adolescents, that support and structure absolutely changed.”

That change is reflected in the new survey, which found Massachusetts in second place when it came to teen illicit drug use, just behind Vermont.

“In Massachusetts, we’re actually seeing the second highest percentage of teen illicit drug users in the past month at just around twelve percent,” said Gonzales. “So that is definitely a high number and one that parents should be aware of.”

Though the WalletHub survey did not count marijuana as illicit if it was legal in a state, Knight-Levine said cannabis is a major issue among adolescents.

“We hold a marijuana cessation vaping class because we have so many students in the community struggling with cannabis use,” she said. “It’s widely available. There is an acceptance, an idea, that cannabis is legal and there’s a real misunderstanding and miseducation on how cannabis impacts adolescent brain development. We see a real shift in behavior, in memory, in processing, in decision making,” she said. “And cannabis impacts and develops those concerns in the adolescent brain almost until the age of 25.”

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