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Working all day, listening to complaints about overall performance from your boss, not getting enough attention from customers, or maybe both.
Then scrolling through social media and seeing Elon Musk’s growing fortune or Jeff Bezos’s yacht wedding in Venice, and hence the realization that being rich that much is almost impossible. Instead, the bank sends daily alerts about the balance of the wallet. With all these burdens, consuming marijuana once back home is a nice thought. Wait, consuming marijuana?
According to the 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which was published on July 28, 2026, 21.4 million Americans (ages 12 and older) used marijuana daily or near-daily on 300 or more days in the past year.
Cigarette smokers only count as daily users if they lit up on all 30 days of the previous month, a stricter bar than marijuana's own metric.
Even so, the marijuana figure outpaces the 19.9 million Americans who smoke cigarettes and the 17.2 million who drink alcohol at the same frequency.
That daily-use tally has climbed fast, from 17.7 million in 2022 to 21.4 million in 2025, an increase of roughly 3.7 million people, or about 21% in just three years.
Even with these numbers, alcohol still remains the most widely used substance overall: About 129 million Americans drank alcohol in the past month, compared with 43.8 million who used marijuana at the same frequency. Adults 18 to 25 made up the largest slice of that group, roughly 8.4 million.
But only 13% of those drinkers did so daily, versus between 40 and 50% of monthly marijuana users.
Among the drinkers, 44% binged at least once that month. For men, binge drinking is defined as five or more drinks on one day in the past 30 days. For women, binge drinking is four or more drinks on one day in the past 30 days.
Cigarette and broader tobacco product use follows a similar pattern: decreasing from 20.1% of Americans in 2021 to 16.2% in 2025. Meanwhile, general marijuana use climbed from 13.2% to 15.1% in the same window.
Perhaps most alarming is that these numbers do not come from an advocacy group or an industry survey. It is the federal government’s own long-running measurement of how Americans use various substances.
The problem is not only about consuming; what comes next is just as alarming: an estimated 19.3 million Americans met the clinical threshold for a marijuana use disorder in 2025, according to the same federal survey, making it the second most common substance use disorder after alcohol.
The most common effects of marijuana are increased risks of psychosis, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, and suicide, according to Mark S. Gold, M.D. Daily use in particular tends to bring on psychosis earlier than it otherwise would, he added.
A 2026 study tracking more than 463,000 teenagers found that even just using marijuana in the past year was tied to a significantly higher possibility of being diagnosed with psychotic, bipolar, depressive, or anxiety disorders by the time they reached their mid-20s.
It might be more critical for adolescents: because the prefrontal cortex, the region governing decision-making and impulse control, is still developing, heavy consumption at that age can permanently reshape how the brain works.
It can disrupt the hippocampus, the area responsible for forming memories, and harm the gray matter tied to planning and self-control.
There are several reasons that marijuana consumption has become so common.
Firstly, 41 states have legalized medical marijuana, and 24 states have legalized recreational use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Medical and recreational marijuana are both legal in Washington, D.C.
Secondly, there is the health angle. Alcohol is a leading preventable cause of death in the United States, linked to liver disease, multiple cancers, accidents, and a long list of other harms.
Cigarettes are no different. But, Work Mans Relief, a marijuana product company, markets marijuana as the healthier alternative to both alcohol and cigarettes, though that argument comes from an industry player with a direct financial stake in the claim.
Following this, lab tests, regulations, and clearly labeled marketplaces draw a clearer picture for people who saw the effects of alcohol and cigarettes. Many people who previously avoided it are now willing to consider it.
Lastly, Workman's Relief also claimed that a growing number of Americans are using marijuana to sleep better, relieve chronic pain, and reduce reliance on medications. They see marijuana more like a tool than an indulgence.
Even though scientific research has well-documented the negative health impacts of marijuana, usage trends are poised to keep growing, driven partly by producers' own marketing.
With more states likely to join the 24 that have already legalized recreational use, the gap between what the science warns and what the market sells is only expected to widen. In the end, people will experience the effects firsthand.
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