For the first time ever recorded, more Americans are using cannabis more than alcohol on a daily basis. This new behavior could have a cascading effect that leads to big cultural and political changes. But in spite of this new shift, marijuana prohibition is still chugging along, making criminals out of a large swath of the population.
A new study published in the journal Addiction analyzed national surveys taken between 1979 and 2022. The review included 27 surveys and more than 1.6 million participants. According to the surveys, an estimated 17.7 million people used weed daily in 2022. In comparison, 14.7 million used alcohol daily or near-daily.
Study author Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, tells The Paper. that the legalization of cannabis in many states may have something to do with the trend.
“The work shows that the prevalence and intensity of cannabis use has changed enormously over time, and in ways that mirror changes in policy,” he says.
He also points out that there’s more to the data than a simple recording of an uptick in weed use.
“If one focuses only on changes in prevalence — meaning the number of users — one will miss the even greater changes in intensity of use,” he says.
There are still more alcohol drinkers in the country compared to marijuana users, but Caulkins says weed is used more intensely by potheads than alcohol is used by drinkers. According to the data, 40% of weed users in 2022 are using daily or near-daily.
The study examined long-term trends for the U.S. as a whole, instead of comparing trends between states. Caulkins looked at days of use, not just prevalence, and drew comparisons with alcohol, using data from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health and its predecessor, the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.
Caulkins compared rates of use in four “milepost” years: 1979 (when the first data became available), 1992 (the end of the Reagan-Bush era), 2008 (the year before the Department of Justice stopped prosecuting state-legal weed companies), and 2022 (the year for the most recent data available).
He found that weed use in that time dipped the furthest in 1992 with fewer than a million people using the drug regularly. There was a small increase leading up to 2008 before an explosion of use leading up to 2022. In that time, the per capita rate of reporting past-year-use increased by 120%, and per capita days of use increased by 218%.
What happened was U.S. Deputy Attorney General David Ogden released a memo in 2009 that directed federal prosecutors in states that had legalized medical cannabis to leave patients and providers alone as long as they are in compliance with state laws. This signaled a new age for state medical cannabis policies and programs began to pop up all over the country for the next few years.
From 1992 to 2022, the per capita rate of daily or near-daily weed use increased 15-fold. The 1992 survey found 10 times as many regular alcohol users as marijuana users (839 million compared to 0.9 million).
The surveys also revealed that while far more people drink alcohol than use weed, high-frequency drinking has become far less common. In 2022, the average drinker reported drinking alcohol 4 to 5 days in the previous month. The average cannabis user reported using weed 15 to 16 days in the previous month. In 2022, prior-month cannabis consumers were almost four times as likely to report daily or near-daily use than drinkers (42% versus 11%) and 7.4 times more likely to report daily use (28% versus 3.8%).
Caulkins didn’t attempt to look for causal effects, but noted that frequency of marijuana use coincided with state and federal policies. When restrictions are in place, people use less cannabis. When policies are more liberal, people use more. He notes that the relationship isn’t clear and policy changes could be the result of cultural changes rather than the other way around.
Interestingly, it seems fewer teens are using weed on average, and the drug is being consumed at larger rates by older people. According to Caulkins, 35 to 49-year-olds use more weed than 26 to 34-year-olds, who in turn use more weed than 18-25-year-olds. Although people 50-and-over use less than most of the younger demographics, they still use more than those under 25. Apparently, weed has become an old person’s drug.
Caulkins says THC potency has also risen steeply in recent years. Up until the end of the 20th century, the average potency of seized cannabis was never higher than 5% THC. Now, it’s easy to find 20 to 25% THC at just about every New Mexico dispensary.
According to Caulkins, today’s daily users average more than 300 milligrams per day, an amount much higher than is used in typical medical cannabis studies.
The ultimate effects of this huge increase in the intensity of weed use are still nebulous and probably won’t be clear until researchers have enough time to analyze all of the changes. If cannabis use is a response to policies, then we’ll likely see its use increase only if incremental policy reforms continue. But if the policy changes are the result of increased acceptance and usage among the population, then we might see broader reforms enacted to appease a weed-hungry populace.
But it’s the cultural effects that will likely be the most interesting to watch unfold over the next few years. Many people are beginning to experience the world through the altered perceptions influenced by THC. How will it change the way people act and relate to one another? How will it affect the way we interact? Get ready for an interesting time in American history.