Who Are You? US Government Statistics on Adult Marijuana Users

The US Government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA) is a treasure trove of information from the National Surveys on Drug Use & Health 2001-2007. I’ve always been uncomfortable discussing most marijuana statistics from this and other reports because the data so often cover marijuana use from age 12 and older. NORML stands for the responsible adult use of marijuana, so I wanted to know the facts on age 18 and older (some may wish for numbers age 21 and older; I only picked 18+ because the first data column is age 18-25).

The essential caveat: these are the people who will tell these things to a stranger for a government survey.

First of all, how many adults in the United States have ever smoked weed? The Survey breaks down the data by age categories and gives the percentage of the sample (Unweighted N) that answered yes or no to the question. Then they extrapolate, based on US adult population demographics, how many people in the United States (Weighted N) would answer yes or no.

US Adults Who Have Ever Used Marijuana by Age

That’s 95 million folks who’ve smoked herb.  The percentage is how many within that age group have used – a majority of 18-25s and 35-49s and real close on the 26-34s.  Or look at it this way: If you see someone under age fifty, flip a coin. Heads, they’ve smoked pot, tails, they haven’t.

When you look at the population of adults who have ever used marijuana, we find that young people (18-34) and middle-aged people (35-50) are equally represented at 36% of the population.

More fun with government numbers and Excel 2007 after the break…

US Adults Who Have Used Cannabis, by Race/Ethnicity

Well over two-thirds of people who have ever smoked pot are white, and only one-fourth are black or Latino. This is an interesting fact to note when compared to the proportions of white, black, and Latino people arrested, convicted, and incarcerated for marijuana.  (Hint: those brown pie slices get a whole lot bigger.)

While Latinos make up the second largest share of adults who’ve used cannabis, that is primarily due to their numbers in the overall population.

Adults Who Have Ever Used Cannabis by Race/Ethnicity

When broken down by racial/ethnic groups, we find that Hispanics are actually less likely to have used cannabis than any other group but Asians (about 1 out of 4 Latinos have used marijuana and only 1 out of 6 Asians… no matter what Cheech & Chong and Harold & Kumar may have led you to believe.)

US Adults Who Use Marijuana Annually by Age

Concentrating only on the 22,003,805 estimated American adults who have used cannabis at least once in the past year yields some interesting figures as well. As expected, younger people are the most likely cannabis consumers. A full 28% of people aged 18-25 use cannabis annually, and over 11% are using cannabis more than 100 days per year, more than the 9% who use less than monthly. But by ages 26-34, all those figures drop by half or more (so much for the new Pot 2.0’s addictive powers.) By ages 35-49, even though chronic and occasional/rare use drops by half again, there are still one out of twelve middle-aged Americans using marijuana at least once per year.

US Adult Chronic Marijuana Use by Age

36.9% of all annual adult marijuana smokers use marijuana more than 100 times per year, meaning there are an estimated 8,120,045 chronic tokers out there. Almost half of these users are aged 18-25.

So remember, dear marijuana smoker, you are not alone. 95,916,972 American adults have used marijuana. 22,003,805 American adults have used marijuana this year. 8,120,045 American adults have likely used marijuana today. If only 1% of people who smoked pot today donated a dollar to NORML, we’d beat our advertising fundraising goal four times over.

Tags: California, Connecticut, demographics, Government, Kentucky, marijuana use, Massachusetts, Medical Marijuana, Montana, New Hampshire, Raid

2007 Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) Marijuana Stats

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, is the Federal Government’s lead agency for improving the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services in the United States. They have released the results of their 2007 Treatment Episode Data Set, or TEDS, showing the National Admissions to Substance Abuse Treatment Services. Let’s take a look at the statistics for marijuana, shall we?

50% increase in marijuana treatment admissions in one decade

In 1997, about 200,000 people checked into treatment for marijuana. By 2005, that number has risen to over 300,000 people, though it has tapered off a bit these last couple of years. By any account, this is a huge rise in the number of people seeking rehab for marijuana in just a decade. It would seem like the powerful new “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” has given rise to a 50% increase in reefer addicts!

Only 15% of marijuana "addicts" admit themselves to treatment

However, when you look behind the numbers, you find that this increase has more to do with the rapid increase of drug courts in the late ’90s, early ’00s. By far, most of the people who are in treatment for marijuana are forced there! 57% are forced into treatment by the criminal justice system, while only 15% admitted themselves to treatment. For comparison’s sake, over all drugs combined, 1/3rd of all admissions are self-admissions, marijuana is the drug with the lowest self-admission rates (lower than meth) and highest criminal justice-admission rates (higher than meth), and for alcohol, self-admission is around 29% and criminal justice (including DUI) admissions are only 42.5%.

37% of all people admitted for marijuana rehab didn't even use marijuana in the past month.

Even more interesting is a look at the actual substance use of the people admitted to treatment. Almost 4 out of ten marijuana smokers who are in treatment haven’t even used marijuana in thirty days! Again, for comparison, only 1 out of 4 alcohol admissions didn’t drink in the past month, and the number is only 1 in 6 for heroin.

Another interesting figure: almost 58% of marijuana admissions are first-time admissions to drug treatment, a number that seems suspisciously close to the 56.9% of admissions from criminal justice. That’s the highest first-time figure of all the common drugs (marijuana, alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and meth). Of those drugs, marijuana and alcohol are the only ones where the majority of drug treatment admissions are not returns to treatment. Also, 31% of marijuana users in treatment are employed, a number twice that of heroin or cocaine admissions, but lower than the 42.5% of employed alcohol users in treatment.

Marijuana rehab is almost exclusively aimed at people under 25

Finally, 3/4ths of marijuana rehabbers are male, half are white, 2/3rds are under age 25. Marijuana has the lowest average age of admittance (24 years old), with all other drugs but inhalants and hallucinogens having average ages in the 30’s. The average alcohol or crack cocaine rehabber is 39 years old.

While we certainly prefer any marijuana smoker caught by law enforcement to be sent to rehab rather than jail, the sentencing of people to rehab who don’t really need it means we are wasting resources that could be better directed to the unfulfilled needs of hard drugs addicts. If alcohol and crack’s average rehab age was closer to 20 than to 40, how much time, money, and misery would we save in this country?

Instead we arrest mostly young people for their marijuana use, then sentence them to rehab, then cite the increasing numbers of young people in rehab for marijuana as proof of the increasing danger of marijuana, which is then used to justify arresting more mostly young people for their marijuana use.

Here is the original: 
2007 Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) Marijuana Stats