For two years now, more U.S. adults have reported smoking cannabis than cigarettes, despite their federal government listing the former as a Schedule I drug on the Controlled Substances Act. Tobacco, meanwhile, remains off the schedule.
A record 17% of Americans in 2023 said they smoked cannabis, and 50% said they “used” cannabis, according to Gallup’s annual “Consumption Habits” survey that was updated Feb. 5. This outweighs the 12% of Americans who said they smoked cigarettes “in the past week” in 2023.
The number of U.S. adults who smoke cannabis first passed the number of those who smoke cigarettes in 2022, with a 16% to 11% edge.
“Americans’ reported marijuana smoking has more than doubled since 2013, when Gallup first added the question in its annual Consumption Habits survey,” according to the pollsters. “That year, 7 percent said they did.”
Conversely, the cigarette smoking rate continued to fall during that same period, down from 19% of Americans in 2013, according to Gallup.
While state-by-state legalization efforts have largely played a role in access to adult-use cannabis—with 20 states having launched commercial retail sales as of 2023, as opposed to zero states that had done so in 2013—age, gender, education and party ID all factor into cannabis smoking rates, according to Gallup.
Twenty-six percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 reported smoking cannabis in 2023, compared to 18% in the 35-to-54 age group, and 11% among those aged 55 and older.
Men (19%) are more likely to smoke cannabis than women (14%).
Americans with a college degree (21%) are more likely than non-college graduates (9%) to smoke cannabis; however, roughly half of each subgroup reported ever having tried cannabis.
And Democrats (22%) are more likely to smoke cannabis than Independents (17%) and Republicans (12%).
Separately, Gallup pollsters found an all-time high 50% of U.S. adults said in 2023 that they have ever tried cannabis in one form or another.
“Between 1969 and 1977, it jumped 20 percentage points, from 4 percent to 24 percent,” according to the pollsters. “It rose another nine points, to 33 percent, by 1985, but thereafter stalled at under 40 percent until 2015, when it ticked up to 44 percent. It remained at about that level through 2019 but then rose to 49 percent in 2021, roughly where it is today.”
Over that same period, support for legalizing adult-use cannabis in the U.S. has grown from 12% in 1969 to 70% in 2023, according to Gallup.
Today, party affiliation has the largest variance is usage rates among the subgroups on Gallup’s survey, with 57% of Democrats and 39% of Republicans who said they’ve ever tried cannabis.
H/T: www.cannabisbusinesstimes.com
