1 in 8 American adults say they smoke marijuana

Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, according to the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (PDF). Therefore, one in five adults that have an age under 30 is a marijuana smoker, while in the other age groups the percentage remained to one in 10 people who were using cannabis.

Half of the states have passed some type of medical marijuana law, and another four will vote on that in November (Arkansas, Florida, Montana, Missouri). Lifetime use was most common among respondents in between, about half of whom said they had tried marijuana. In 1969, when Gallup first began surveying marijuana use by adults, only 4% admitted to having tried cannabis.

“States’ willingness to legalize marijuana could be a reason for the uptick in the percentage of Americans who say they smoke marijuana, regardless of whether it is legal in their particular state”, pollsters state.

In 2013, only 7 percent of adults said they were marijuana smokers.

Gallup notes that a “clear majority” of Americans support legalizing the drug, and with more states considering some type of legalization, “it’s likely that use of and experimentation with marijuana will increase”.

The researchers still analyze if the difference in percentages is caused by the fact that attitudes towards pot had changed over the years, and young people are not that interested in marijuana. “But as those adults have aged and successive generations have joined their ranks, the overall percentage having ever tried it has sharply increased”, Gallup writes.

Part of the rise may also be due to decreased social stigma surrounding marijuana use.

As part of its July 13-17 Consumption Habits poll, Gallup asked poll participants, “Keeping in mind that all of your answers in this survey are confidential, do you, yourself, smoke marijuana?” Among people who seldom or never go to church, 14% reported current use. Regardless of whether they use it currently, almost half of American adults now have first-hand experience using marijuana.

Income and education levels don’t seem strongly related to an individual’s likelihood of having tried marijuana.

While 12% of men claimed current use, only 7% of women did.

The findings of the poll don’t necessarily mean that more adults are trying or using marijuana, however.

Although marijuana use is still prohibited by federal law, the number of states that have legalized recreational marijuana use has grown from two in 2013, the states of Colorado and Washington, to four today – with the addition of Alaska and OR – plus Washington, D.C.