Young Adults Turn to Chatbots for Drug Answers, Study Finds

Young Adults Turn to Chatbots for substance-use information in surprising numbers, according to a new Rutgers study that finds about one in three people aged eighteen to twenty-nine has already used a chatbot to look up drug and alcohol information. The research, published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, reports that more than thirty-two per cent of surveyed young adults had turned to tools such as ChatGPT for substance-related answers, most often to learn about risks and consequences. The finding lands at a moment when chatbots have become a first stop for all kinds of questions, and it raises a pointed question for doctors, parents and public health workers: what happens when the answer comes from software that can sound confident while getting things wrong?

The study draws on survey data from nearly one thousand participants, and its authors say the pattern is too widespread to dismiss as a curiosity. Young Adults Turn to Chatbots not only for quick facts but as a regular habit, with about half of those who used the tools for substance-use information saying they did so at least monthly. That frequency matters, because a monthly habit means repeated exposure to answers that may be incomplete, out of date or simply incorrect. For a group that is already the most affected by the adverse effects of substance use, the researchers argue, the stakes of a wrong answer are higher than for an ordinary trivia query.

What the survey found

Trust is a central thread in the results. Young adults in the study reported high levels of trust, reliability and helpfulness in the tools they used, according to Rutgers University, which published a summary of the work. That confidence sits uneasily beside what researchers know about generative software, which produces fluent, plausible-sounding text that can reproduce misinformation. A chatbot does not know when it is guessing, and it does not flag uncertainty the way a careful clinician might, so a user who trusts the tone of an answer may not think to check it against another source.

The study also found uneven patterns in who turns to these tools. Black and male participants were more likely to report using chatbots for substance-use purposes, a gap that lead author Mireia Triguero Roura said could reflect differences in healthcare access, stigma, trust and health information-seeking behaviour. That explanation points in two directions at once. On one hand, a chatbot that answers without judgement may feel safer than asking a person, especially for someone who has faced stigma or poor access to care. On the other hand, if the people most likely to rely on these tools are also the people with the fewest other sources of reliable advice, the cost of a bad answer falls hardest on them.

Why researchers are concerned

The core worry is straightforward. As Triguero Roura put it, using these tools can lead to misinformed or otherwise risky substance-use behaviour among young people, who are the age group most affected by adverse effects of substance use. A chatbot might understate a risk, mix up doses or interactions, or present an outdated harm-reduction tip as current guidance. None of that requires malice from the software, only the ordinary limits of a system trained to predict plausible text rather than to verify medical facts. When the topic is a substance a person is about to use, plausibility is not a safe substitute for accuracy.

The broader context makes the finding harder to ignore. Separate survey data cited by Rutgers shows that two thirds of young adults use artificial intelligence to search for information and to get medical advice in general, which means substance-use questions are part of a much larger shift in how health information reaches people. Earlier generations of young adults might have asked a friend, searched a forum or waited for a clinic appointment. Today, an answer arrives in seconds, in the user's own register, at any hour, and that convenience is precisely why researchers say public health messaging has not caught up. Surveys have long assumed that beliefs form through clinicians, schools, peers and advertising, and an always-available assistant scrambles that model.

What happens next, and what readers can do

The researchers are careful about what their study cannot prove. It relies on self-reported behaviour, captures a single snapshot in a technology that changes every few months, and cannot say whether chatbot use came before substance use or followed it. Those limits matter, and they are a reason to treat the results as a baseline rather than a final verdict. What the study does establish is scale: a substantial minority of young adults is already getting substance-use information from chatbots, and that behaviour is now common enough that clinical guidance and public health campaigns need to account for it.

Triguero Roura and coauthor Pia M. Mauro, an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, suggest that further research should examine how young adults interpret chatbot answers about drugs and alcohol, and what this new information source means for public health. That work could shape practical responses, from clearer warnings inside chatbot products to outreach that meets young people where they already look for answers. A counterpoint worth holding onto is that the same accessibility that worries researchers also explains the appeal: for someone nervous about asking a question out loud, a private, instant answer can feel like the only option, and simply telling people not to use these tools is unlikely to work.

For readers, the practical takeaway is to treat a chatbot answer as a starting point rather than a verdict. Cross-check anything that affects safety with a clinician, a pharmacist or an official health source, and be especially cautious with claims about doses, combinations and emergency care. The Rutgers findings, summarised in a detailed account of the survey, sit alongside wider research on campus life and health costs, including recent reporting on medical debt relief and a major research funding announcement in Canada. Young Adults Turn to Chatbots because the tools are fast, private and always available, and the challenge now is to make sure the answers they give are worthy of that trust.