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A new study published in the journal Addiction found that the number of people in the United States who use marijuana every day surpassed the number of Americans who drink on a daily basis for the first time ever.
Using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Jonathan Caulkins, a drug policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, found that in 2022, 17.7 million people said that they used marijuana every day, while 14.7 million people responded that they consumed alcohol every day.
However, Caulkins noted that overall, more Americans drink than use marijuana.
"Far more people drink, but high-frequency drinking is less common. In 2022, the median drinker reported drinking on 4–5 days in the past month, versus 15–16 days in the past month for cannabis," he wrote.
The findings concern Dr. David Gorelick, a psychiatry professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who was not involved in the study. He told The Associated Press that high-frequence users are at a higher risk of becoming addicted to the drug, which remains illegal at a federal level, despite dozens of states legalizing it for medical and recreational use.
"High-frequency use also increases the risk of developing cannabis-associated psychosis," a severe condition where a person loses touch with reality, Gorelick warned.