Research funded by the National Institutes of Health has revealed historic high levels of cannabis, hallucinogens and alcohol use among adults aged 35 to 50 years old. The NIH-funded study stated that the use of hallucinogens and marijuana by middle-aged adults, which has been on an upward trajectory for several years, peaked in 2022.
Furthermore, younger adults who also took part in the annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) panel study reported record high levels of hallucinogen, cannabis, and vape use. The report showed a significant increase in past-year hallucinogen and cannabis use as well as nicotine vaping in the past five years among adults aged 19 to 30 years old. This age group recorded its highest-ever level of cannabis use and vaping in 2022, the MTF study found.
The study was conducted by researchers from the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Cannabis reform has swept across America in the past two decades and left dozens of state medical and recreational cannabis programs in its wake. Tens of millions of Americans now have access to cannabis, and as lawmakers in several states work on legalizing psychedelics, access to hallucinogenics is steadily increasing.
The report indicated that many adults are turning to cannabis for its therapeutic properties while others have made the plant their social drug in place of alcohol and tobacco. Younger adults continued the trend of moving away from alcohol and exhibited reduced rates of binge drinking over the past decade. On the other hand, middle-aged adults aged 35 to 50 reported the highest binge drinking rates amid major past-year, five-year and 10-year increases in the prevalence of binge drinking.
Specifically, the report noted that 28% of middle-aged adults used cannabis in the past 12 months up from 25% in 2021, an all-time high and more than double the 13% who reported past-year cannabis use in 2012. Past-year psychedelic use in middle-aged adults was also at a record high at 4%, double the 2% in 2021, and substantially more than less than 1% in 2012 and 2017.
Middle-aged adults also reported record high rates of alcohol use. Past-year drinking was up to 85% in 2022 from 83% in 2012 and binge drinking increased to record levels at 29% in 2022 from 26% in 2021, 25% in 2017, and 24% in 2012.
NIDA director Nora Volkow noted that older adults take part in substance use just as much as teens and younger adults. The data collected in this year’s MTF panel study will help the agency better understand drug use trends across people’s lives, the director said, a crucial first step to understanding how substance use and its effects on health evolve over time. Volkow added that the agency wanted to equip younger to older adults with up-to-date information to help them make better-informed substance use-related decisions.
Psychedelics and marijuana are used by some people for medicinal reasons, and companies are looking to standardize therapeutic formulations from cannabis so that these medically oriented users of marijuana can safely address their symptoms while reducing the risks they face from the use of these substances.
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