Gallup Poll Finds More Americans Smoke Marijuana Than Cigarettes
More Americans smoke marijuana than tobacco, according to the results of a recent Gallup poll. The poll also found that the use of cannabis in the United States is at an all-time high, jumping by a third in just one year.The Gallup poll, which was released on August 16, shows that 16% of those surveyed said that they smoke marijuana, up from 12% in a similar poll only one year ago, although Gallup said the change was not statistically significant. By contrast, only 11% said that they had smoked a tobacco cigarette in the previous week in a separate poll published in July. That figure was down from a year ago when 16% said that they had smoked a cigarette in the past week and a significant decrease from the peak in the 1950s, when 45% of adults polled said that they were smokers.Both metrics in the most recent polling set new records. The percentage of those who said they smoke marijuana was the highest since Gallup began asking the question in 2013, while the portion of those who said they smoked a tobacco cigarette in the previous week was the lowest recorded since the public opinion analytics company began keeping track of smokers in 1944. Nearly half (48%) of U.S. adults say they have tried marijuana at some time in their lives, up from only 4% in 1969, when Gallup first started surveying rates of lifetime marijuana use. The same year, 40% of Americans said that they had smoked a cigarette in the past week.