Fifteen percent of Americans report they smoke marijuana, according to new Gallup polling.
The percentage of U.S. adults who report they smoke marijuana has more than doubled since 2013, when Gallup first added the question to its annual Consumption Habits survey. That year, 7% said they smoke it.
Marijuana use varies significantly by gender, age and other respondent characteristics:
- Men (17%) are more likely than women (11%) to say they smoke marijuana.
- Adults aged 55 and older (10%) are less likely to report using marijuana than are middle-aged (18%) and young (19%) adults.
- Smoking marijuana is more common among adults without a college degree (17%) than it is among college graduates (11%).
- Democrats (23%) are more than twice as likely as Republicans (10%) to report using marijuana, with independents’ rate (14%) falling between them.
- Regionally, the highest rates of marijuana usage are in the West (19%), Midwest (16%) and East (16%). It is lower in the South, where 11% report using it.
Gallup asks a separate half-sample of respondents in its annual Consumption Habits survey if they have ever tried marijuana. The combined data for 2023 and 2024 puts this figure at 47%.
Gallup’s trend on ever having tried marijuana shows that experimentation increased sharply in the first decade after the initial measure in 1969. Between then and 1977, it jumped 20 percentage points, from 4% to 24%. It rose another nine points by 1985, to 33%, but after that stalled at under 40% until 2015, when it ticked up to 44%. It has since increased slightly but remains below 50%.
Gallup has also recorded a significant increase in the U.S. public’s support for the legalization of marijuana over the past six decades, rising from 12% in 1969 to a high of 70% in 2023, before leveling off at 68% this year.
