Cannabis Now Tops Alcohol as Daily Drug of Choice, by Chuck Norris

As recently reported by The New York Times, a new study shows that “for the first time on record, cannabis has outpaced alcohol as the daily drug of choice for Americans.” The study was published in the journal Addiction and was based on analyzed data from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health. It showed that in 2022, 17.7 million people reported using cannabis, aka marijuana, “either every day or nearly every day, compared with 14.7 million who reported using alcohol with the same frequency.” It also showed that the proportion of people in the U.S. who use cannabis frequently has “increased 15-fold” since 1992.

Some say this reflects the embrace of a drug now legal for recreational use “in 24 states and Washington, D.C., and for medical use in 38 states and D.C.” But while cannabis legalization has accelerated since the ’90s, not everyone is so accepting of its popularity, especially among young folks. As Jonathan P. Caulkins, a professor of public policy at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, explains in the Times report, “I don’t think that for most daily or near-daily users it is a health-promoting activity. For some, it’s truly harmful.”

Notes Beatriz Carlini, a research associate professor in the psychiatry department of the University of Washington in Seattle, cannabis legalization supporters say making the drug available would reduce alcohol abuse. Yet the study shows only a slight dip in frequent alcohol consumption. “It is disheartening,” says Carlini.

Nikki Battiste reports for CBS News that according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the change in preference from alcohol to cannabis “is largely being driven by young people.”

In February, The Washington Post reported on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis that concluded that “most teens who use drugs are searching for calm and hoping to relieve stress.

“Most of the adolescents in the study — 73 percent — reported using drugs and alcohol to ‘feel mellow, calm, or relaxed,'” the Post reports. An additional “44 percent reported using drugs to stop worrying about a problem or forget bad memories. … and 40 percent said they used to help with depression or anxiety. Study participants could choose more than one response, which is why percentages add up to more than 100 percent. … According to the CDC data, overdose deaths among adolescents increased 109 percent between 2019 and 2021.”

As Nikki Battiste reports, “not everyone sees the uptick in marijuana use as positive, including psychiatrist Colin Reiff,” who argued that “the legalized age for cannabis should be around 33 years old, when people are outside the window of developing schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and a lot of other things. Or most certainly it should be after 26, once the prefrontal cortex is done developing.” Reiff noted “a recent National Institute of Health study that associates schizophrenia with excessive cannabis use among some young people, especially young men, at an age when their brains are still maturing,” according to Battiste.

The NIH study also warned that cannabis has become increasingly potent. “The average level of THC, the main compound in marijuana that triggers its psychoactive effects, jumped from 4% in 1995 to more than 15% in 2021, a four-fold increase, according to the latest figures from the University of Mississippi’s potency monitoring project,” writes Battiste.

According to the Times, data from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows “that the concentrations of THC, the psychoactive component in marijuana, have increased dramatically over the years.

“In 1995, the concentration of THC in cannabis samples seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration was about 4 percent. By 2021, it was about 15 percent. And now cannabis manufacturers are extracting THC to make oils, edibles, wax, sugar-size crystals and glass-like products called shatter with THC levels that can exceed 95 percent.”

According to Dr. Michael Murphy, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, “as we see higher rates of cannabis use in young people, I expect to see higher rates of psychotic disorders.” The Times reports that “in the last decade, research has shown that frequent cannabis use — and particularly the use of high-potency products with levels of THC greater than 10 percent — is a risk factor for the onset of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.”

“But that isn’t to say that use less frequent — monthly or yearly — is necessarily safe,” notes Murphy.

According to a USA Today report in March, the most recent National Survey on Drug Use states that “nearly 25% of Americans ages 12 or older say they used illegal drugs in 2022. That’s 70.3 million people nationwide. … 47% admitted to using marijuana at some time in their life, making it the most common illicit drug among lifetime use statistics.”

According to National Survey on Drug Use statistics, “Nationwide, 38,679,000 American adults reported having a substance abuse disorder in the last statistically available year.” Those who use cannabis frequently, especially young people, are also at risk of developing cannabis addiction. “The United States faces a complex and evolving crisis when it comes to substance use disorders,” Addiction Group warns. “These disorders affect people across demographics. It destroys lives and strains families, communities, and healthcare systems.”

Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebook’s “Official Chuck Norris Page.” He blogs at To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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