Agnostic.com

4 1

LINK Daily marijuana use outpaces daily drinking in the US, a new study says -- ABC News

New research suggests that daily and near-daily marijuana use is now more common than similar levels of high-frequency alcohol consumption in the United States

By CARLA K. JOHNSON AP medical writer
May 22, 2024,

Daily and near-daily marijuana use is now more common than similar levels of drinking in the U.S., according to an analysis of national survey data over four decades.

Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook high-frequency drinking, said the study’s author, Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.

“A good 40% of current cannabis users are using it daily or near daily, a pattern that is more associated with tobacco use than typical alcohol use,” Caulkins said.

The research, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, was published Wednesday in the journal Addiction. The survey is a highly regarded source of estimates of tobacco, alcohol and drug use in the United States.

In 2022, an estimated 17.7 million people used marijuana daily or near-daily compared to 14.7 million daily or near-daily drinkers, according to the study. From 1992 to 2022, the per capita rate of reporting daily or near-daily marijuana use increased 15-fold.

The trend reflects changes in public policy. Most states now allow medical or recreational marijuana, though it remains illegal at the federal level. In November, Florida voters will decide on a constitutional amendment allowing recreational cannabis, and the federal government is moving to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

Research shows that high-frequency users are more likely to become addicted to marijuana, said Dr. David A. Gorelick, a psychiatry professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

The number of daily users suggests that more people are at risk for developing problematic cannabis use or addiction, Gorelick said.

“High frequency use also increases the risk of developing cannabis-associated psychosis,” a severe condition where a person loses touch with reality, he said.


The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

snytiger6 9 May 22
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

4 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

1

I recently read where THC spiked drinks were doing very well and becoming available in some bars.

(Getting very non-polar THC to stay dissolved in a polar water medium requires some doing. I solved it by putting the alcoholic extract into glycerin which then formed a soluble, sweetening emulsion)

1

Yes, the longitudinal studies will be interesting.

1

Keep It Simple (Ignore the throw-away S here).

Pot’s having fewer calories than alcohol persuades me.

4

My sister has to use cannabis edibles just to get through the day because she suffers from Long Covid and just moderate activity causes muscle pain. We are lucky it is "legal" in Washington State.

When I was in college getting my AA in Addiction Studies, I learned a lot about cannabis. For the most part it isn't physically addictive, but it psychologically addictive. That just means you won't die from withdrawal if you stop using it. You will experience a great deal of discomfort, depending on your previous usage levels.

In some ways cannabis use is safer than alcohol use, as cannabis uses don't experience an escalation in violence, like some users of alcohol do. There are hardly any cannabis related homicides, and no overdose deaths as there is with alcohol.

Cannabis became illegal in the same way most drugs became illegal, which was as a part of race war against nonwhites, and a way to target specific races and ethnic groups, and to this day minority races and ethnic groups are prosecuted to a larger extent than Caucasians when it comes to drug charges. The first drug to become illegal was opium, as a way to attack and prosecute the Chinese, who at the time were the most frequent users of opium. Even in recent times race determined how drug use was criminalized and prosecuted, as powder cocaine used mostly by Caucasians had much lighter sentences than crack cocaine, which was the same drug in a different form, but was used mostly by blacks and received much longer jail sentences. Historically, drug laws were almost always put in place, not to protect the general public, but to discriminate against a racial or cultural group who used a particular drug the most.

Drug laws became more, but not totally, generalized with the Vietnam war protests, where it was convenient to jail protesters for drug use, which was actually using drug laws to impede rights of free speech.

Interesting comment, thanks for the education 🙂

@snytiger6 Plus the drug kingpins didn't want to pay the American government taxes for the drugs they were importing here. I don't blame them, they were wanting some of that bank they were making from the one's who were the majority of users.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:756594
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.