YOUTH SUBSTANCE USE HAS BEEN WORSENING WHILE EXPERTS AND MEDIA CELEBRATE FABRICATED GAINS AGAINST IT
Fabricated decreases in youth vaping and substance use, universally celebrated as remarkable public health victories, are again exposed as lies
by Clark Miller
Published December 26, 2025
They thought they got away with it, America’s trusted healthcare experts and leaders. Of course they did, it’s been rolling their way for decades, protected by a compliant, impotent, clueless media ready to celebrate their fabricated public health victories, hide a worsening opioid crisis, and eager to disguise that a global pandemic killing millions started recklessly and criminally in their offshore bioweapons lab.
It’s as if America’s opioid crisis- and global pandemic-generating public health institutions are charmed, protected. Protected, ethically compromised and incompetent enough to assure Americans last year, 2024, that youth vaping and substance use are dramatically reduced – by filtering out of surveys the youth population most likely to be experiencing problem substance use. And? By interpreting as if valid and accurate, student self-reports under conditions predicting underreporting of substance use, independent, valid results nullifying those interpretations.
Those reckless distortions of results were celebrated in a frenzy of unified expert and media consensus validation of gains for the well-being of America’s youth, described here.
Including in the New York Times, from America’s top drug expert in this April 2024 interview.
Historically speaking, it’s not a bad time to be the liver of a teenager. Or the lungs.
Regular use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs among high school students has been on a long downward trend. . . .
What’s the big picture on teens and drug use?
[Volkow] – “People don’t really realize that among young people, particularly teenagers, the rate of drug use is at the lowest risk that we have seen in decades. And that’s worth saying, too, for legal alcohol and tobacco.” . . .
Is it too simplistic to see the decline in drug use as a good news story?
[Volkow] – “If you look at it in an objective way, yes, it’s very good news. Why? Because we know that the earlier you are using these drugs, the greater the risk of becoming addicted to them. It lowers the risk these drugs will interfere with your mental health, your general health, your ability to complete an education and your future job opportunities. That is absolutely good news.
Things have changed, these more recent headlines and reports pointing to findings from researchers taking time “to look at it in an objective way“.
The original research was published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association).
“That is absolutely good news.”
– U.S. top drug expert Nora Volkow in NY Times April, 2024 interview
Those national surveys and deceptive, invalid interpretations by our top experts used to generate their messaging last year are established as invalidated on multiple, independent counts, deconstructed and explained in detail here at A Critical Discourse in posts from June 2024 and February and March 2025, here and here and here.
The most salient of those analyses related to the recent exposure of worsening of youth vaping over past years was included in this post, excerpts following –
[It’s worth reading through to gain a clear understanding of how recklessly and deviously data from the national surveys were spun and misused to message the fictional reductions in youth vaping achieved by e.g., “monumental public health win”.]
Then there’s the additional evidence,
the widespread and accumulating body of data, results including local survey results, and collected observations across locales and the U.S. and beyond, of trends of increasing youth vaping (and smoking of traditional tobacco cigarettes) that belie the fabricated outcomes of our debunked national self-report surveys.
Easily available by online search and too many to describe individually here. There are, for example, the numerous examples of survey results for which the claim of reduced smoking or vaping based on a change of fewer self reports of “current use” (current use = at least one instance of use of a vape over the past 30 days, the single measure used in the two national surveys in question) is contradicted by increase in self-report of “frequent” (20 or more uses in the past 30 days) or “daily” use.
Which measures seem more meaningful for our understanding of trends and how problematic they might be for youth vaping? The measure that includes a positive response for someone who did or did not use a vape on one occasion over 30 days, maybe impulsively and uncharacteristically with friends, versus measures of frequent (on 20 or more days over the past 30) or daily, indicating the high likelihood of nicotine dependence?
Anyone? Anyone?
Right.
Here is an example of media spin of survey results, from Wisconsin, that illustrates multiple apparently intentional distortions.
First, the headline,
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (WDPI), in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has released the results of the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). This biennial survey assesses health-risk behaviors among Wisconsin high school students, ranging from nutrition and mental health to substance use. The latest findings reveal a significant decline in the use of traditional tobacco products and a noteworthy decrease in vaping since its peak in 2019. …
E-cigarettes have also been a focal point for policymakers concerned about youth vaping. In 2023, 34.4% of students had tried e-cigarettes, and 15.7% reported current use. E-cigarette use peaked in 2019 when nearly half (45.5%) of Wisconsin high school students had tried them and 20.6% were current users. Between 2019 and 2023, ever-use of e-cigarettes among students declined by 24.4% and current use by 23.8%.
[emphasis added]
When truth lies buried,
some digging is required to expose it. Let’s take a look.
Let’s consider in this example the reported indications for youth vaping trends in light of the actual survey results.
Per the news account, “Between 2019 and 2023, ever-use of e-cigarettes among students declined by 24.4% and current use by 23.8%”, ostensibly supporting the headline assertions that “Youth Tobacco And Vaping Use Has Declined In Wisconsin”.
“Current use” dropping by 23.8% refers to QN36, which surveyed for use “on at least one day during the 30 days before the survey”, and we note that in the original report, there is “No linear change” noted, and between 2021 and 2023, there is an apparent increase in percent of respondents positive for vaping.
For QN35, “ever used”, by including the much higher 2019 value, a linear decreasing trend was detected, and again there is an increase from 2021 to 2023, the salient trend for our understanding of most current trends in vaping prevalence.
Looking at frequent and daily use – the measures we should be most concerned about – again, there is clearly for most recent years and trend, no downward trend 2021 to 2023, with appearance of indications of increases.
That is, there is nothing in the actual survey results to support the lie of recent decrease in vaping by youth, instead the opposite.
Back to our current post –
Within weeks of those November, 2025 headlines reporting worsening youth vaping and exposing last year’s expert lies about youth substance use, new results from the same, repeated national survey, with the same fatal methodological and design errors rendering interpretations entirely invalid, appeared in headlines proclaiming continued success in keeping teen substance use “low”, America’s top drug expert “encouraged” by the findings for teen substance use. From a National Institutes of Health (NIH) news release –
For the fifth year in a row, use of most substances among teenagers in the United States has continued to hover around the low-water mark reached in 2021. The findings come from the latest report of the Monitoring the Future Survey, an annual survey of drug use behaviors and attitudes among eighth, 10th, and 12th graders that has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for 51 years.
Researchers, based at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, detected a sharp decline in reported use of most drugs from 2020 to 2021. This substantial falloff was largely attributed to disruptions in drug availability and in the social lives of teens during the pandemic, when many were isolated at home with parents or other caregivers and spending less time with friends. The researchers also found that the percentage of teens currently abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, and nicotine use held steady at historically high levels.
“We are encouraged that adolescent drug use remains relatively low and that so many teens choose not to use drugs at all,” said Nora D. Volkow, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). “It is critical to continue to monitor these trends closely to understand how we can continue to support teens in making healthy choices and target interventions where and when they are needed.”
To repeat,
The national surveys and results used by our top experts to create their lethally deceptive messaging are established as invalidated on multiple, independent counts, deconstructed and explained in detail here at A Critical Discourse in posts from June 2024 and February and March 2025, here and here and here.
Those surveys did not measure problem substance use among American youth, instead excluded from sampling the subpopulation of American youth most likely to be engaging in problem substance use.
And obtained survey data from that invalidating, biased sample by self-report and under conditions predicting under-reporting of substance use, that under-reporting affirmed by independent analyses and evidence.
And left out of surveys, ignored, the youth compulsive substance use problem eclipsing all others and generating obesity and diabetes epidemics: compulsive, stress-driven use of food.
Check those headlines again, above, at the top.
In affirming a worsening youth nicotine and vaping epidemic, the November 2025 headlines exposed a single, illustrative example of lethal expert misinformation, of the gross distortions, lies, and pathological levels of expert incompetence and recklessness generating the lethal assurances about a year and a half ago that youth vaping and substance use generally are barely a concern any longer. Go back and look at the New York Times celebratory interview with America’s top drug use expert.
Those assurances were lies that hide lethal risks:
Abstract
Nicotine-containing products, whether combustible or smokeless, pose a growing threat to cardiovascular (CV) health. While tobacco smoking continues to cause millions of deaths annually, the rapid uptake of e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, and synthetic nicotine pouches, particularly among the youth, risks reversing decades of progress in tobacco control.
Findings Temporal trends from 2007 to 2023 have significantly worsened for child mortality; chronic physical, developmental, and mental health conditions; obesity; sleep health; early puberty; limitations in activity; and physical and emotional symptoms.
Meaning US children’s health has deteriorated across a broad spectrum of indicators, highlighting the need to identify the root causes of this fundamental decline in the nation’s health.
Key Points
Vaping is a persistent and growing issue in Florida schools, with some districts reporting thousands of incidents annually.
Vapes are designed with appealing flavors and discreet packaging, making them popular among teens and difficult for parents to identify.
Students caught with nicotine vapes face citations and fines, while possession of THC-filled vapes can lead to criminal charges.
Key findings of the expert consensus report:
- Nicotine is a potent cardiovascular toxin, causing damage to the heart and blood vessels, regardless of the delivery system.
- No nicotine-containing product is safe for blood vessels or the heart. This includes e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, waterpipes, cigars and oral nicotine pouches.
- Youth addiction is rising rapidly, fuelled by flavours, social media marketing and regulatory loopholes.
- Passive exposure to smoke, vape and heated tobacco emissions also causes vascular harm.
- Vapes and pouches are not effective cessation tools, but rather are an entry point to smoking and often lead to dual use (alongside cigarettes).
- Nicotine-related illness cost hundreds of billions of Euros in healthcare and productivity losses every year.
- Policy gaps persist across Europe, enabling new nicotine products to avoid taxation, packaging rules and public-use restrictions.
The predictable costs of those derelict expert and media failures are unacceptable.
Know your enemies.
