A new study analyzing California health data has found that adults with higher levels of education are more likely to use marijuana, a pattern opposite to cigarette smoking rates.
Researchers from California State University and the University of California examined data from the 2023 California Health Interview Survey, which included over 20,000 adults age 26 and older. They found that 13.5% of respondents reported current marijuana use, more than double the 6.1% who said they smoked cigarettes.
The data revealed that those with a high school diploma, some college, or a college degree were all significantly more likely to use marijuana than adults who did not finish high school. In contrast, cigarette smoking was far less common among college graduates than among those with lower education levels. Logistic regression confirmed that the odds of marijuana use were more than two times higher for adults with some college or a degree compared to those who did not graduate high school.
The researchers note that this diverges sharply from the long-established inverse relationship between cigarette smoking and education, where higher educational attainment is associated with lower smoking rates. They suggest that changing social norms and the legalization of recreational marijuana in California in 2016 may have helped drive use upward among more educated groups.
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