Daily Drug War Digest--August 13, 2026

Pot use is at near or record highs, Hegseth warns of ICC interest in US boat strike killings, and more. 

Pete Hegseth addresses the hemispheric anti-drug coalition. (DOD)

Marijuana Policy

Annual Survey Finds Marijuana Use "At or Near Record-High Levels." In 2025, adults in the United States reported using cannabis at or near record-high levels, continuing a long-term trend of increasing use. Nicotine vaping also remained high among young adults. These findings are based on the latest report from the Monitoring the Future (MTF) Longitudinal Panel Study, an annual examination of self-reported drug use in the U.S. among adults ages 19 to 65 supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since its inception in 1976.

The panel study, conducted by investigators at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, showed that increased levels of cannabis and nicotine vaping and pouch use coincided with historically low rates of cigarette smoking and a decline in alcohol consumption, continuing patterns seen in recent years. Some results bucked trends, however, such as a slight increase in self-reported heroin use among young adults aged 19 to 30, marking the first significant uptick and highest level in about 10 years.

"It is reassuring to continue to see relatively low smoking rates and a continuing decline in alcohol use among adults. At the same time, rising rates of cannabis, nicotine, and certain other drug use warrant attention. Continued monitoring is vital for understanding the changing drug landscape so that we can develop effective interventions to support public health," said Nora D. Volkow, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Among all adults, daily, past 30-day, and past 12-month cannabis use and cannabis vaping remained at or near all-time highs. Adults in early midlife (35 to 50 years old) reported significantly higher rates of daily cannabis use than last year, increasing from 6.6 percent in 2024 to 8.5 percent in 2025.

The report identified a small but significant increase in the prevalence of heroin use over the past year in young adults, rising from 0.2 percent in 2024 to 0.6 percent in 2025, which is under the all-time high of 0.7 percent in 2013. Likewise, nonmedical use of sleep medications in the past 12 months among the same age group increased significantly from 2.0 percent in 2024 to 3.0 percent the following year.

Another significant change, also among young adults, was a decrease in psychedelics use over the past year, from 8.9 percent in 2024 to 7.2 percent in 2025. This decline follows an upward trend over the last decade.

Foreign Policy

Defense Department Civilian Casualty Report Does Not Include "Drug Boat" Victims. The Pentagon on Tuesday released a congressionally mandated annual report on civilian casualties caused by US military activities that claimed no civilians were killed in US attacks on suspected drug-trafficking boats last year. But at least 120 civilians died in the US attacks last year, with the toll rising to more than 220 before the strikes tapered off earlier this year. 

Unnamed government officials unhappy with the report called it "a fucking joke" and "a total whitewash" in comments published by The Intercept. "They have absolutely no credibility," the second official said about the boat strike claims, adding that the report was "sickening."

The Trump administration has claimed repeatedly and without evidence that the boat strike victims were "narcoterrorists." But while the term conjures up visions of Osama bin Laden astride a speedboat like George Washington crossing the Delaware, the boat strike victims are, at worst, low-level employees or contractors for criminal drug-smuggling organizations, not Al Qaeda or ISIS. 

Under US law, suspected criminals are to be apprehended and tried, not gunned down on the high seas. The administration has provided no evidence that any of the people it killed were involved in drug trafficking, though, and some of them may well have been totally innocent victims of a murderous US policy. 

The Pentagon is required under Section 1057 of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act to provide Congress and the public with data on civilian harm, mitigation steps, and assessments. The report went to members of the Armed Services Committees.

Under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the US military has gutted civilian harm mitigation and response programs designed to minimize civilian casualties. The results of that move can be seen in the 153 civilian deaths the military took responsibility for in its 2025 attacks on Yemen's Houthis (Yemeni human rights groups say the actual figure is more than 300) and the 160 Iranian schoolgirls killed on the first day of the Iran war. 

Defense Secretary Hegseth Warns that the ICC May Look at US Boat Strikes. During a Wednesday speech in Panama where he pledged to wage more, better drug war in Latin America, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that the International Criminal Court (ICC) could investigate US military actions in Latin America, including strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific decried by rights groups as extrajudicial killings.

Spoke before Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, also known as the Shield of the Americas, a Trump administration initiative to reinvigorate prohibitionist drug policies in the region. 

Hegseth called on the coalition to reject the ICC, an appeal that comes amid an "all of government" effort by the Trump administration to "disable" the international 

"The international left, along with their enabling left-wing media, is plotting to unlawfully assert International Criminal Court jurisdiction over US and partner military personnel and operations," Hegseth claimed. "To be clear, there is no legitimate basis for the ICC’s lawless power grab that they will entertain anywhere they can in the world," he said. "Our efforts in this effort are 100 percent lawful under the laws of armed conflict."

Few, if any, experts on human rights or international treaties agree with the Trump administration on that claim.