Daily Cannabis Consumption Outpaces Daily Alcohol Use In The US For The First Time, New Study Shows

For the first time ever, the number of Americans who consume cannabis on a nearly daily basis has surpassed the number of people who drink that often, a shift some 40 years in the making as recreational marijuana use become more mainstream and legal in some form in nearly half of U.S. states.

A new study published Wednesday in the journal Society for the Study of Addiction explores how marijuana consumption habits have changed in recent decades. One surprising piece of data noted that since 1992, the per capita rate of daily cannabis consumption in the country has increased nearly 15 times over.

"Long-term trends in cannabis use in the United States parallel corresponding changes in cannabis policy, with declines during periods of greater restriction and growth during periods of policy liberalization," said the study's author Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.

"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."

By 2022, an estimated 17.7 million people reported using marijuana daily or near-daily compared to 14.7 million daily or near-daily drinkers, according to the study, an analysis of national survey data. In 1992, when daily cannabis use hit a low point, less than one million people said they used cannabis nearly every day. The Associated Press first reported on this study.

While alcohol is still more widely used, 2022 was the first time this level of marijuana use overtook daily and near-daily drinking.

Caulkins acknowledged in the study that people may be more willing to report marijuana use as public acceptance grows, which could boost the increase.

"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. "Of particular note, willingness to self-report may have increased as cannabis became normalized, so changes in actual use may be less pronounced than changes in reported use."

The study's findings draw from data collected by the federally funded National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which is viewed as a reliable source of self-reported estimates of tobacco, alcohol and drug use in the U.S. The survey has been conducted annually since 1990 and four times before in 1979, 1982, 1985 and 1988.

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