How Cannabis Use is Changing Across the U.S.

Voters in four states will weigh in this week on ballot initiatives that would legalize the recreational or medical use of marijuana.

If Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Florida pass the measures, they will join over two dozen other states to have legalized the drug in some way, becoming part of a shifting landscape of cannabis use in the United States.

Researchers tracking cannabis say that the picture of who uses the drug — and how — is evolving, and point to a few key trends.

Use appears to be rising among everyone — except teens.

When states first legalized recreational cannabis, starting with Colorado and Washington in 2012, some panicked. “The ‘sky’s going to fall’ scenario was that all of the kids were just going to have access to all of the cannabis and it was going to be a terrible, terrible thing,” said Ryan Vandrey, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine who studies cannabis.

The largest jumps in use in recent years, though, appear to be among adults.

About 42 percent of adults ages 19 to 30 and 29 percent of those ages 35 to 50 have used cannabis in the past year — a historically high level of use, according to data from a nationwide survey. That shift may be in part because of changing public perceptions about the drug and whether it’s all that harmful, Dr. Vandrey said. (This is despite evidence that many cannabis products are stronger than they used to be; doctors have also raised concerns that some users can become dependent on the drug.)

Seniors are also increasingly using cannabis. In 2007, less than 1 percent of adults 65 and older had used the drug in the past year. By 2022, that number grew to more than 8 percent. Experts aren’t exactly sure what’s behind that trend, but noted that some cannabis brands have ramped up marketing to older adults.