It’s official: smoking weed is more popular than smoking tobacco

For the first time, more Americans report smoking weed than tobacco. These results were compiled in a new Gallup poll, and while not overly surprising, they mark a significant moment in our culture and show just how far cannabis has come in the past decade.

Conducted in July, the survey highlights the work being done to control tobacco use. The poll asked respondents a variety of questions, including whether or not they had consumed edibles (14% said yes), a first in Gallup history!

“Marijuana use (based on self-reports) has increased dramatically over the past half century. Only 4% said they had ever tried marijuana in 1969, when the question was first asked. That is now 48%. Seven percent of Americans reported currently smoking marijuana in 2013, compared to 16 percent measured this summer,” says Gallup.

Photo by lilartsy via Unsplash

The results show that the substance Americans use most is alcohol, with 45% of them reporting having used it in the past week and 67% of them reporting using it occasionally.

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“Overall, American adults use alcohol significantly more often than marijuana or cigarettes. And while alcohol consumption has remained relatively constant over the decades, cigarette consumption today is less than a quarter of what it was in the 1950s,” says Gallup. “Americans’ regular marijuana use is slightly higher than cigarettes at this point, but the trend in marijuana use over the past several decades is upwards.”

Americans have slowly become more honest about their cannabis use and more willing to try it. In the last decade, Americans began experimenting with the drug when it became legal in a multitude of states, leading to the environment we live in today when almost half the population says they try the drug to have.

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Marijuana is one of the few issues right now that is bipartisan, at least when it comes to the American public. Overall, while conservatives are less supportive of legalizing the drug than liberals, the majority of people are tuned into some form of legal cannabis.

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