Today is 4/20, so if you partake, maybe see if you can block out some time at the end of the day to TOUCH GRASS. If you know what I mean.
Here are 10 stats about marijuana to help celebrate this “holiday”:
1. 87% of Americans support legalizing marijuana in some way. 54% say it should be legal for medical AND recreational use, and another 33% say it should be legal for medical use only. Only 12% say it should be illegal.
2. Young people are more cool with it. 31% of Americans ages 75 and older favor legalizing marijuana for both uses, as do 49% of those ages 65 to 74. But 65% of adults under 30 support full legalization.
3. Support for marijuana legalization has increased dramatically in recent decades. 40 years ago, about 81% of Americans said that it should be illegal, and just 16% said it should be legal. Now, that’s basically flipped.
4. That doesn’t mean everyone wants to use cannabis. 51% of U.S. adults have used marijuana at least once. That’s less than the 85% who have ever consumed alcohol, and the 65% who have ever used tobacco or nicotine products.
5. Far fewer are current users. In 2023, 23% of adults said they had used marijuana in the prior year, while 16% had used it in the prior month.
6. 52% of U.S. adults say legalizing marijuana for recreational use is good for local economies, 17% say it is bad. 27% say legalizing recreational marijuana decreases the use of “harder” drugs like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine, while 29% believe it increases use.
7. Most Americans support easing penalties for people with marijuana convictions, and 61% support removing or expunging marijuana-related offenses from people’s criminal records.
8. 24 states and the District of Columbia allow small amounts of marijuana for both recreational and medical use. In 16 additional states, it’s legal for medical use.
The remaining 10 states don’t have any official legality: Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Wyoming, and Idaho.
9. 79% of Americans live in a county with at least one cannabis dispensary. California, Oklahoma, Florida, Colorado, and Michigan are among the states with the largest number of dispensaries.
10. Last year, 17% of people said they use cannabis daily for medical or recreational purposes. 11% say they use it monthly, 3% say “a few times a year”, and a whopping 69% say they rarely or never use marijuana.
Those numbers exclude the people who said they, “preferred not to answer.”
