When Pennsylvania Attorney General David Sunday laid out details about an alleged drug ring that funneled kilos of cocaine to students at Penn State University, the case raised specters of the 1980s when coke was a popular party drug among young Americans.
“Cocaine was often packaged at the fraternity houses and the packaging was done by fraternity brothers and oftentimes pledges,” Sunday said at a press conference August 17, where he confirmed 14 people had been arrested.
“The actual drug dealing was largely from friend to friend … and at fraternity houses and during parties,” he added, describing a large-scale criminal enterprise that operated in 2023 and 2024.
The alleged campus cocaine scheme has drawn national headlines and the investigation is continuing. But while the case is serious, because any amount of cocaine use poses serious health risks, NPR could find no evidence cocaine use is gaining popularity on campuses. Research points to the opposite.
“There’s been a decrease over the past five years of cocaine use among young adults in the U.S.,” said Megan Patrick, a researcher at the University of Michigan, who co-authors an annual survey of substance use in the U.S. “The prevalence is about 5% in the past 12 months [of young adults who] used cocaine.”
Patrick noted that other substances are far more popular than cocaine and potentially disruptive on college campuses. “High levels of cannabis use” are widespread and “alcohol use is still the most prevalent substance,” she said.
A pattern of less risk-taking by college students
National substance use data typically isn’t collected specifically for college students or for people in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 22, so researchers said patterns of drug use on campuses have to be extrapolated from a variety of studies and surveys.
One comprehensive report released last month by the federal Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administration found cocaine use among young adults, age 18 to 25, fell from 3.7% in 2021 to 2.6% last year. That data includes non-college students.
Alcohol consumption has also fallen significantly among young Americans. A poll by Gallup released last year found that after decades of steady declines, the rate of drinking among people ages 18 to 34 dropped between 2023 to 2024.
Despite that trend, roughly half of young adults still report regular drinking, often with dire health impacts. Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that roughly 4,000 people under age 21 die in the U.S. every year from excessive alcohol use.
“I think one of the things we may need to focus on more than cocaine would be binge drinking,” said Terri Powell, a professor of public health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We find that those numbers seem to still be high.
A 2022 fact sheet produced by the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism concluded as many as 1,500 college students die annually from alcohol-related causes.
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health released in July 2026 found marijuana use also remains elevated, despite health concerns linked to growing cannabis potency. Roughly 1-in-4 college-age Americans reported using cannabis regularly in 2025. That’s the highest level of use for any age demographic in the U.S.
But that same survey found monthly marijuana use among young adults peaked in 2022 and has been trending slowly downward ever since.
There’s debate among researchers over why younger Americans appear to be using substances less frequently, pivoting away from high-risk drugs in particular, but the results are hopeful. According to CDC data, fatal drug overdoses among young adults have fallen by roughly 50% from the peak in 2021.
“What we’re seeing is a massive reduction in [fatal] overdose risk, among Gen Z in particular,” said Nabarun Dasgupta, an addiction researcher at the University of North Carolina, in an interview with NPR last year.
Transcript:
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
The investigation into an alleged cocaine ring at Penn State University is still being conducted. Fourteen people linked to two different fraternities were arrested last week. The charges have grabbed national headlines, but experts say the most serious threat on college campuses nationwide isn’t cocaine. It’s alcohol. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann joins us now. Hi, Brian.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Hey there, Adrian.
FLORIDO: Catch us up on what happened at Penn State. What do we know?
MANN: Well, Pennsylvania state Attorney General Dave Sunday said these individuals, many of them past students and fraternity leaders at Penn State, they created a pipeline of cocaine, allegedly trafficking kilos of the drug from Philadelphia and New York City to students at Penn State.
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DAVE SUNDAY: The evidence showed that cocaine was primarily packaged at the fraternity houses and that packaging was done by fraternity brothers and oftentime (ph) pledges.
MANN: At that press conference, the attorney general went on to describe how this network trafficked drugs directly to students. This was in 2023 and 2024. Penn State issued a statement saying, and I’m quoting here, Adrian, “we are horrified by these serious allegations against current and former students.” University officials say they are cooperating with law enforcement.
FLORIDO: Brian, this is a big scandal on this one college campus, but you have been looking into the larger story. How big a problem is cocaine at colleges and universities across the country?
MANN: Yeah, as attention-grabbing as this bust is, the data suggests this is not sort of a tip-of-the-iceberg situation. There’s no evidence cocaine use is on the rise among college-age Americans or on campuses. In fact, the best available research shows the opposite. I spoke about this with Megan Patrick. She’s at the University of Michigan, and she co-authors an annual report studying substance use.
MEGAN PATRICK: There’s been a decrease over the past five years in cocaine use among young adults in the U.S. The prevalence overall is about 5%.
MANN: So a small fraction of college students. Of course, at a school like Penn State with tens of thousands of students, that means there are still likely to be hundreds of people buying and using cocaine at any given time. Because dealers often mix cocaine now with fentanyl and other potent street drugs, any amount of cocaine use is high risk. But as you mentioned, the data really does show that alcohol remains by far the biggest substance-use danger for American college students.
FLORIDO: But hasn’t alcohol use among young people fallen in recent years?
MANN: Yeah, that’s right. You know, drinking has fallen. A Gallup poll released last year showed alcohol use among Americans age 18 to 34 has been dropping steadily. And then after 2023, it dropped even faster. Even so, Gallup found about half of young adults do report drinking alcohol. Drinking on campuses is still a major concern, and I spoke about this with Terri Powell at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
TERRI POWELL: I think one of the things we may need to focus on more than, I would say, than cocaine would be binge drinking. We find that those numbers seem to still be high.
MANN: And the numbers here are pretty alarming. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data last year showing about 4,000 people in the U.S. under age 21 die every year from excessive alcohol consumption. The best data NPR could find suggests roughly 1,500 college students die every year from alcohol-related incidents.
FLORIDO: Brian, what about marijuana use on college campuses?
MANN: Yeah, this is the other big one. College-age Americans are the demographic group most likely to use marijuana regularly. About 1 in 4 use it monthly. That’s according to the National Survey on Drug Use released last month. But this is interesting, Adrian. That same survey found monthly marijuana use among young adults actually peaked in 2022, and it’s been trending downward very slowly ever since. So all the experts I spoke with say the broad pattern here really suggests less drug use, less risk-taking. There’s a lot of debate among researchers over why that’s happening.
But there is a really cool outcome of all this, a hopeful detail. The latest CDC data shows fatal overdoses among young adults in this college-age group, those overdoses are down roughly 50% from the peak in 2021.
FLORIDO: Well, that is good news. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann. Thanks, Brian.
MANN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF EMOTIONAL ORANGES SONG, “TALK ABOUT US (FEAT. ISAIAH FALLS)”)
