The number of adult marijuana users has increased by 10 million in the United States in just over a decade, according to a survey.
A large study on American teenagers and their relationship to marijuana recently showed that cannabis use has fallen by 10% in twelve years across the Atlantic. Good news ? Partly, because the number of adult marijuana users has increased by 10 million in the United States in just over a decade.
These are the results of a survey of more than 500,000 Americans over the age of 18 between 2002 and 2014. The total number of marijuana users has thus increased from 21.9 to 31.9 million, according to the authors of this study published in The Lancet Psychiatry.
More daily users
And the continuation of the figures collected is hardly more reassuring. These scientists estimate that the number of daily, or near-daily, riders increased from 3.9 million in 2002 to 8.4 million in 2014, among Americans aged 18 and over. The frequency of daily or almost daily use (use on average 5 days or more per week) thus increased from 1.9% to 3.5% during the period, according to this survey based on questionnaires.
To understand, the researchers explain that this increase was associated with a decrease (from 50.4% to 33.3%) in the proportion of adults for whom smoking marijuana once or twice a week is a great risk.
In comments reported by Agence France Presse (AFP), the authors confide that “these results suggest that there is a need to improve education and prevention messages on the risks of smoking marijuana. This even as the prohibition of cannabis is losing ground in the United States, ”they underline.
The only glimmer of hope, the study did not show an increase in the overall frequency of disorders (abuse or dependence) linked to cannabis use among adults.
The impact of American legalization
“These changes in the prevalence of cannabis use took place during a period when many states in the United States legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes, but before the legalization of recreational cannabis use by four states (after 2014) ”, addiction experts Michael Lynskey and Wayne Hall commented to AFP.
“It is probably too early to draw conclusions about the effects of these legal changes on rates of cannabis use and its harm,” they add. They nonetheless consider “probable” that these political changes will increase the frequency of cannabis use and, potentially, the disorders associated with this use in the longer term “.
As a reminder, in 2014 cannabis was still the most commonly used drug worldwide, followed by amphetamines. 183 million people have thus consumed cannabis, according to a recent UN report on drugs.
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