Science & Health
One In Four Young Americans Consume Marijuana, Survey Finds
It turns out millennials are different than the rest of Americans: They like to smoke marijuana a lot more than the general public.
Nearly one in four Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 say they “regularly” or “occasionally” consume cannabis, according to a recent Gallup poll.
That’s nearly twice the rate of cannabis consumption than the rest of the population, 13 percent of which cops to using marijuana. And it far exceeds the percentage of adults 50 and over who say they toke up.
The survey also found that among all Americans, consuming cannabis is now considerably more popular than smoking cigars (9 percent), chewing tobacco (5 percent) or using a pipe (4 percent).
Americans aged between 50 and 64 and those 65 and over are just as likely to smoke cigars (6 percent) as they are to use cannabis (also 6 percent), according to the poll.
That’s despite a general acceptance of marijuana across age groups that’s been steadily growing for at least the past decade.
The same Gallup poll, in a separate release of results last month, found that 82 percent of Americans say that tobacco is harmful to human health, compared to just 27 percent who said they believed marijuana was threatening.
Eighteen percent of respondents said they believed marijuana wasn’t harmful at all.
These results are consistent with earlier polling that consistently finds young Americans’ attitudes are the most relaxed towards cannabis—or, possibly, they are the least inclined to fib about their marijuana habits to a stranger on the telephone.
Earlier Gallup polling in 2015 and 2017 found that 22 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds answered “yes” when asked whether or not they used marijuana.
Results are based on telephone interviews of 1,033 adults conducted between July 1 and July 11. The poll’s margin of error is plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
The same poll also fund that 20 percent of Americans still regularly or occasionally smoke cigarettes.
Predictably, America’s marijuana consumers as a whole are concentrated in the West, where cannabis has been legal the longest—these days, it is the rare Western state that does not allow cannabis use in some form—and generally considered acceptable behavior in certain circles for even longer.
Women (11 percent) were less likely to be consume marijuana than men (15 percent).
Americans View Marijuana As Significantly Less Harmful Than Cigarettes
Photo courtesy of Martin Alonso.
