Bud Beats Booze as Threefold More Consumer

Authored by University of Michigan published research stated that younger adults are nearly three times more likely to use marijuana than alcohol on a daily or near-daily basis, according to an annual nationwide survey of about 20,000 people across three distinct age groups: ages 19 to 30, 35 to 50 and 55 to 65. People in the oldest of three surveyed age groups, meanwhile, are more likely to drink alcohol frequently, while those between 35 and 50 appear to have roughly even daily or near-daily (DND) use rates for both substances.

The analysis, published last week in the journal Data Insight, shows that among the youngest age group, frequent cannabis consumption was three times as common as alcohol use. Among 19 to 30 year olds, 10.4 percent reported DND use of marijuana compared to 3.6 percent who reported DND alcohol use.

Among what the paper calls “early midlife adults”—those aged 35 to 50—use rates were almost equal: 7.8 percent reported DND alcohol use, while 7.5 percent reported DND cannabis consumption. Overall, patterns indicate that daily or near-daily cannabis use has “increased over the past 5 and 10 years…among young adults and early midlife adults,” the study says, increasing by nearly 75 percent—an increase of 4.4 percentage points—from 2013 to 2023.

“Overall, there has been a crossover of DND use of cannabis and DND use of alcohol among young adults in the past decade, As of 2023, DND cannabis use was more prevalent than DND alcohol use among those ages 19 to 30. Early midlife adults have had a convergence, but not yet a crossover.” the report concludes.

As for alcohol, DND use has decreased over the past five and 10 years among young adults, while early midlife adults have only reported a decrease more recently, during the past five years. DND drinking by young adults fell about 35 percent (1.9 percentage points) over the past decade, from 5.5% in 2013 to 4.8% in 2018 and to 3.6% in 2023, Among early midlife adults, there was a significant decrease by approximately 20% (1.6 percentage points) over the past 5 years, from 9.5% in 2018 to 7.6% in 2023 (with a very noticeable 1-year increase in 2020 during the COVID pandemic). MARIJUANA MOMENT REPORT

Furthermore the study, which was supported by research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, provides more granular, age-specific findings than a similar report published earlier this year that found that more Americans overall smoke marijuana on a daily basis than drink alcohol every day—and that alcohol drinkers are more likely to say they would benefit from limiting their use than cannabis consumers are.

While a separate study published in the journal Addiction this past May similarly found that there are more U.S. adults who use marijuana daily than who drink alcohol every day, the new research also comes at nearly the same time as a Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) survey indicating that substitution of cannabis for alcohol is “soaring” as the state-level legalization movement expands and relative perceptions of harm shift. A significant portion of Americans also said in that poll that they substitute marijuana for cigarettes and painkillers.