5. Fewer than half (46%) of U.S. adults say they have ever used marijuana
According to the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That is lower than the shares who say they have ever consumed alcohol (80%) or ever used tobacco products (61%).
While many Americans say they have ever used cannabis, far fewer are current users, according to the same 2019 survey: 18% of U.S. adults say they have used marijuana over the past year, while 11% say they have used the drug over the past month.
6. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have legalized small amounts of marijuana for adult recreational use as of April 2021
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures. This spring, New Mexico, New York and Virginia became the most recent states to do so. Overall, 43% of U.S. adults now live in a jurisdiction that has legalized the recreational use of marijuana at the local level, according to 2019 population estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. Guam, a U.S. territory, legalized the recreational use of marijuana in 2019, and the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth, did so in 2018.
Three dozen states, as well as D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, have approved some form of a medical marijuana program. Numerous states have also enacted laws reducing criminal penalties for certain marijuana-related convictions or allowing past convictions to be expunged.
Note: This is an update of a post originally published in November 2014.