I went viral on X last week by surfacing a remarkable fact: For the first time on record, more Americans consume marijuana every day than smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol every day.
Those results show up in the new data tables for the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the federal government’s big annual drug use survey. By its estimates, marijuana eclipsed alcohol a few years back. That’s significant because, for a long time, alcohol has been the reference point for advocates of legalization. We tolerate alcohol just fine, so the argument goes, and alcohol prohibition failed. Alcohol is a popular recreational intoxicant, just like marijuana. Doesn’t legalization just mean adding another product like—or, arguably, healthier than—alcohol to our culture?
The new data answer with a resounding “no.”
