Gallup Poll: 15% of Americans Smoke Cannabis

In a Gallup poll released November 1, 15% of Americans said they smoke cannabis – a figure not statistically different from the 14% average found by the pollster in 2021-2022.

From 2017-2019, Gallup found an average of 12% of Americans said they smoked cannabis – the same figure from 2015-2016 – but up from 7% of Americans who reported smoking cannabis in 2013.

The recent poll found that men (17%) are more likely than women (11%) to say they smoke cannabis and adults aged 55 and older (10%) are less likely to report smoking cannabis than middle-aged (18%) and young (19%) adults.

Smoking cannabis is more common among adults without a college degree (17%) than it is among college graduates (11%), the poll found, with Democrats (23%) more than twice as likely as Republicans (10%) to report smoking cannabis, while the rates among independents (14%) fell in between them.

Regionally, the highest rates of smoking cannabis are in the West (19%), Midwest (16%) and East (16%) – rates are lower in the South (11%).

The rate of people who have tried cannabis fell slightly from 2021-2022 to 2023-2024 from 49% to 47% and support for broad cannabis legalization also ticked slightly lower from 70% last year to 68% this year, the poll found.

Gallup’s trend on ever having tried cannabis shows that experimentation increased sharply in the first decade after the initial reform measure in 1969. Between 1969 and 1977, the share of people who had tried cannabis jumped 20 percentage points, from 4% to 24%. It rose another nine points by 1985, to 33%, but then at under 40% until 2015, when it ticked up to 44%. It has since increased slightly but remains below 50%.