With the majority of Americans living in a state with some form of legal marijuana, stigmas are seemingly eroded. Cannabis consumption is more widely accepted than ever before. And when it comes to cannabis vs alcohol, the plant is starting to come out on top.
A new study reveals frequent cannabis consumption outpaces frequent drinking. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon analyzed self-reported data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), looking at more than 1.6 million respondents across 27 surveys from 1979 to 2022.
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The final year of analysis was where trends officially shifted. According to the paper, “the 2022 survey, for the first time, recorded more daily and near-daily users of cannabis than alcohol (17.7 million vs. 14.7 million).” That year, the average drinker reported imbibing on 4–5 days in the past month versus 15–16 days in the past month for cannabis consumers.
The paper noted that “far more people drink than use marijuana. Nonetheless, respondents reported almost two-thirds as many days of marijuana use as alcohol use because high-frequency use is more common with marijuana.” Participants who used cannabis in the last month were nearly four times as likely to report daily or near-daily use versus alcohol drinkers. The cannabis camp was also more than seven times more likely to report consuming every day.
“A growing share of cannabis consumers report daily or near-daily use, and their numbers now exceed the number of daily and near-daily drinkers,” the study authors wrote.
Frequent cannabis consumption has been trending upward over the last two decades. The study shows from 1992 to 2022, the per capita rate of reporting daily or near-daily marijuana use increased 15-fold.
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The authors concluded that the liberalization of cannabis policy may explain the willingness of participants to admit to consuming cannabis. Therefore, “changes in actual use may be less pronounced than changes in reported use.” However, the paper did note that “the enormous changes in rates of self-reported cannabis use…suggest that changes in actual use have been considerable, and it is striking that high-frequency cannabis use is now more commonly reported than is high-frequency drinking.”
With so many people choosing to abstain from alcohol for health reasons, it makes sense that daily drinking is on the decline while cannabis consumption is on an upward trajectory. If the survey is any indication, booze is out, and weed is in.
