One in Eight U.S. Adults Say They Smoke Marijuana

By Gallup | August 8, 2016
Thirteen percent of U.S. adults tell Gallup they currently smoke marijuana, nearly double the percentage who reported smoking marijuana only three years ago.

lthough use of the drug is still prohibited by federal law, the number of states that have legalized recreational marijuana use has grown from two in 2013, Colorado and Washington, to four today — with the addition of Alaska and Oregon — plus the District of Columbia. Five states will vote on whether to legalize marijuana this November.

Half of U.S. states (including the four above) have some variation of a medicinal marijuana law on the books, and four more will be voting this fall on whether to legalize marijuana for medicinal use. Both major-party presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have voiced support for medicinal marijuana but say they defer to the states in terms of policymaking on both recreational and medicinal marijuana use.

States’ willingness to legalize marijuana could be a reason for the uptick in the percentage of Americans who say they smoke marijuana, regardless of whether it is legal in their particular state. Gallup finds residents in the West — home of all four states that have legalized recreational marijuana use — are significantly more likely to say they smoke marijuana than those in other parts of the country.

Gallup has found that majorities of Americans have supported legalizing marijuana since 2013.

More Than Four in 10 Say They Have Tried Marijuana

More broadly, 43% of Americans say they have ever tried marijuana, similar to the 44% recorded last year and up slightly from 38% in 2013. The percentage of Americans who say they have tried the drug has slowly increased from 4% in 1969. - Full Study

Marijuana Use and Perceived Risk of Harm From Marijuana Use Varies Within and Across States

By Arthur Hughes, M.S., Rachel N. Lipari, Ph.D., and Matthew R. Williams, Ph.D | The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration | July 26, 2016
Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States,1 and many Americans do not perceive it as potentially harmful.2 Although the laws regarding marijuana use have changed in several states over the past decade, marijuana remains classified as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it is categorized as having a high potential for abuse and has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.3 In other words, marijuana use remains illegal under federal laws in all states and the District of Columbia e.g., Controlled Substances Act; (http://www.fda.gov/ regulatoryinformation/ legislation/ucm148726.htm).

Across the United States, the increasing number of marijuana users has a public health impact on state and local communities. For example, research indicates that 1 in 11 marijuana users aged 15 or older become dependent on marijuana.4 In addition, marijuana use has resulted in approximately 4.2 million people meeting the diagnostic criteria for abuse or dependence on marijuana, is a major cause for visits to emergency rooms, and is the second leading substance for which people receive drug treatment (behind alcohol).1,5,6 These and other consequences of marijuana use have placed a significant strain on the U.S. health care system according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.3

Educating people about the dangers of starting marijuana use is an effective way to reduce the impact of marijuana use in the future. One way to anticipate future marijuana use is to measure perceptions of the risk of harm from marijuana use because it has been a leading indicator of future use.7 Data from a collection of national cross-sectional surveys of secondary students has indicated that attitudes about the risks associated with substance use are often closely related to use, with an inverse association between use and risk perceptions (e.g., the percentage of those who use a substance is lower among those who perceive high risk of harm from use).8 Thus, states and other geographic areas with low percentages of people who perceive that there is a great risk of harm from using marijuana would be expected to have high percentages using marijuana. As a result, it is useful for

state and local policymakers and prevention specialists to understand the association between marijuana use and perception of great risk of harm and potential consequences to a person’s health and well-being.

Although marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in America, the percentages using marijuana and the attitudes regarding the risk of marijuana use are not the same across states or even within each state. Within each state, patterns of substance use and corresponding attitudes differ. Data on small geographic areas provide insight into marijuana use and attitudes about marijuana use that can help state and local public health authorities better understand and address any needs in their communities. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) can help address the need for more localized information.

This issue of The CBHSQ Report uses combined 2012 to 2014 NSDUH data to present estimates of past month marijuana use and perceptions of great risk of harm from smoking marijuana once a month among people aged 12 or older in 362 substate regions, the 50 states, and the District of Columbia. In most states, the substate regions are defined in terms of single counties or groups of counties; in some states, the regions are defined entirely in terms of census tracts (in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, and Massachusetts), parishes (in Louisiana), boroughs/census areas (in Alaska), a combination of counties and census tracts (in California and Delaware), and a combination of counties and independent cities (in Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia). The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) works with state substance abuse/mental health agency representatives to define substate areas that meet state needs and reporting requirements while ensuring that the NSDUH sample sizes were large enough to provide estimates with adequate precision. These substate-level estimates provide local-level information on behavioral health outcomes that states find useful for planning, reporting, and providing useful data for prevention and intervention efforts.9 The 2012 to 2014 estimates in this report are based on substate boundaries that reflect the current state needs and reporting requirements and may not be comparable with substate estimates from prior years. - Full Study Review

Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Prescription Medication Use In Medicare Part D

By Ashley C. Bradford & W. David Bradford | Health Affairs | July 2016
Legalization of medical marijuana has been one of the most controversial areas of state policy change over the past twenty years. However, little is known about whether medical marijuana is being used clinically to any significant degree. Using data on all prescriptions filled by Medicare Part D enrollees from 2010 to 2013, we found that the use of prescription drugs for which marijuana could serve as a clinical alternative fell significantly, once a medical marijuana law was implemented. National overall reductions in Medicare program and enrollee spending when states implemented medical marijuana laws were estimated to be $165.2 million per year in 2013. The availability of medical marijuana has a significant effect on prescribing patterns and spending in Medicare Part D. - Abstract

Marijuana Use Remains Flat Among Colorado Teens

By Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment | June 20, 2016

Key findings in the report:

• The large majority of Colorado middle and high school students — 62 percent — say they have never used marijuana.
• Alcohol is the drug of choice among Colorado teens, with 30 percent of kids surveyed saying they drank within the previous month.
• Cigarette use among teens is at an all-time low, with fewer than one in 10 kids saying they smoke them regularly. But more than a quarter of Colorado teens say they have used an e-cigarette or other vapor product in the last month.
• Nearly 14 percent of Colorado teens said they have used pharmaceuticals without a prescription, below the national average. But the percent of Colorado teens who have ever used cocaine or ecstasy — both at around 6 percent — is slightly higher than the national average.

Here is a downloadable PDF. For the entire study, click here!