How Common is Marijuana Use in the US

By: A Forever Recovery

Dec 21, 2016

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How Common is Marijuana Use in the US

How common is marijuana use in the US, currently? In light of the most recent election, marijuana has become more common and more popular to use than perhaps ever before. This fact has a lot of people questioning just how prevalent marijuana use and abuse is now.

Though it rarely registers much concern among modern day affairs and the day to day society of individuals in the US, marijuana abuse is a particularly dangerous issue in the nation. Right off the bat, the first problem that comes to mind is that of those who drive a vehicle while under the influence of marijuana. Columbia University researchers looked into this. In fact, after performing an impressive toxicology examination of nearly 24,000 driving fatalities, the results were pretty grim. This study concludes that marijuana contributed to 12 percent of all traffic deaths in 2010, a number that has significantly no less than tripled from that of just a decade earlier.

Marijuana is Stronger Today Than in Years Past

The concern regarding marijuana does not stop there though. In fact, one of the most concerning aspects of drug and alcohol addiction in the 21st-century is the rapid spike in the overall prevalence of marijuana use in the US. If marijuana is going up, then other drugs are going up too. Marijuana abuse is a lot more concerning now than it ever has been before because marijuana is a lot stronger than it ever used to be in years past. For example, back in the 1970s and 1980s, marijuana had only about seven percent THC in it (THC being the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that produces the high). Now, most marijuana is composed of 10 to 20% THC. The stronger marijuana also figures in all of the different additives and other chemicals that go into it as well. Marijuana is incredibly addictive today. This drug is causing addiction among Americans in the hundreds of thousands, if not in the millions.

The Problem Gets Even Worse

It gets even worse than that. How did marijuana use in the US get so prevalent and shared? Well, obviously a lot of people think that it is okay or that it is something that is acceptable. That is exactly the case. A very concerning issue with drug and alcohol abuse in the United States today is how standard and how people accept marijuana abuse in this nation, especially as opposed to several years ago. What a lot of people are forgetting is that marijuana is the number one gateway drug in the country! Even if it isn’t nearly as bad as most drugs, 90% of all drug addicts in the country will admit that they got their start with marijuana as their first drug of choice. This fact alone is reason enough to keep it illegal and to not allow its use in the nation, or at the very least to regulate it properly.

Marijuana is the number one gateway drug in the nation. That fact is well known. Becoming addicted to marijuana is bad enough by itself, but the problem then gets a lot worse when one begins to go on to abuse some other type of drug too, especially harder drugs like heroin, cocaine, or painkillers. Everyone who uses marijuana will not go on to use harder drugs; we are in no way saying that.

The Regularity of Marijuana Use in the US

Easily the most abused illicit drug is marijuana with no less than 14.6 million drug users. The drug is quite common now, and there is no questioning that fact. It is the most common drug in the entire nation. It is of the utmost importance now more than ever that we all address this issue properly.