More Americans now report smoking marijuana than cigarettes, according to Gallup. The shift goes deeper than the headline.
What the data shows
According to Gallup, based on combined 2023 and 2024 polling, 15% of Americans report they smoke marijuana, compared with 11% who report having smoked cigarettes in the past week. The questions capture smoking specifically, not other forms of cannabis use like edibles or vaping, but the gap itself marks a real shift.
More recent federal data goes further. The 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found an estimated 21.4 million Americans used marijuana daily or near-daily, compared with 19.9 million who smoked cigarettes every day. That marks the first time daily marijuana use has overtaken daily cigarette smoking in federal survey data, not just occasional use.
Part of this is cannabis use rising. A large part of it is cigarette smoking collapsing, the result of decades of public health work that has driven smoking to a new historic low, with roughly one in eight U.S. adults now smoking.
The bigger shift is in how often people use. A study in the journal Addiction found that in 2022, for the first time in modern history, more Americans reported using cannabis daily or near-daily than drinking alcohol daily. Follow-up national surveys through 2023 suggest the trend continued, and among young adults, daily marijuana use now substantially exceeds daily cigarette smoking. Among teenagers, daily marijuana use now clearly exceeds daily cigarette use across every grade measured.
Why this isn't a simple story
This is not really a celebration. Daily use is the pattern most associated with dependence, and today's cannabis is far stronger than it used to be. The average potency sold in dispensaries now sits around 20 to 25% THC, compared to under 5% through most of the 1990s, and concentrates go much higher. A daily habit today is a different thing than a daily habit a generation ago.
None of this is a verdict on cannabis itself. It is just worth noticing a genuine cultural shift happening quietly, and asking what daily use at modern potency actually does over time, because the honest answer is that we are still finding out.
Sources
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
Gallup, "What Percentage of Americans Smoke Marijuana?" news.gallup.com
Gallup, "U.S. Cigarette Smoking Rate Steady Near Historical Low." news.gallup.com
Caulkins JP. Changes in self-reported cannabis use in the United States from 2019 to 2022. Addiction (2024).
Patrick ME, et al. Monitoring the Future National Survey Results (2025). monitoringthefuture.org