CANNABIS
The Disconnect Between Marijuana Use and Marijuana Users
A Disjointed Analysis
Today, marijuana use is widely considered acceptable in states that permit legal consumption. There’s overwhelming public support for marijuana legalization, so much so that a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that only one out of every ten people thought it should remain illegal federally. Many people don’t perceive cannabis the same way they may have viewed it even just a decade ago. Most see marijuana as more akin to alcohol nowadays.
The American Addiction Centers published their findings from a survey of just over one-thousand people in 2023 that compared participants’ thoughts about alcohol use and marijuana use in a variety of scenarios. The results weren’t entirely surprising: by and large most people consider alcohol more dangerous and more addictive than marijuana. But there was an aspect of the study that was paradoxical.
The survey showed that people who had never used marijuana before thought alcohol was a more dangerous substance than marijuana, 25% more dangerous. As far as addictiveness, whether people had used cannabis, alcohol, both, or neither, all participants thought alcohol was more addictive than marijuana. The survey also showed that people are more likely to use alcohol than…
