The Top Five States with Most Marijuana Use
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 3:28 pm | By: Radical Russ
The New York Times has a nifty interactive map based on data from the 2006-2007 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (more data here). It provides a drop-down menu to choose which dataset you’d like, which I naturally used to choose “Percent of people 12+ who have used marijuana in the past year”. Based on that information, your Top Five Stoner States are:
- Rhode Island (16.12%)
- Vermont (15.75%)
- Alaska (13.79%)
- Oregon (13.12%)
- Colorado (12.99%)
Surprised that California isn’t in that list? Me, too. I’m not at all surprised by Vermont, Alaska, Oregon, and Colorado, but stunned that Rhode Island came in at #1. I’d caution that this represents everyone from the once-a-year-at-a-concert toker all the way through the daily Stasher. If frequency and amount used were considered, I’d be willing to wager we here in Oregon are, uh, higher than #4. Curious about your Bottom Five?
- Utah (7.17%)
- Iowa (7.32%)
- Mississippi (7.79%)
- Texas (7.92%)
- Alabama (7.96%)
That #1 result for Utah shouldn’t surprise anyone with its majority Mormon population that even rejects coffee drinking. Another category where Utah is number one is consumption of Jell-O, which was named the official state snack. Oddly enough, the one time Utah lost its Jell-O crown was when Iowa briefly overtook them. So I wonder, is there some sort of yin/yang thing going on between cannabis and gelatin snacks? If you’re too high does it make it tough to follow the Jell-O recipe, or is it that you get such munchies you don’t have time to wait for Jell-O to set? By the way, does anybody have a recipe for ganja Jell-O; maybe that’s the solution?
I also thought it would be interesting to look at the Top Five States for Binge Alcohol Drinking:
- North Dakota (32.02%)
- Wisconsin (28.84%)
- Minnesota (28.75%)
- South Dakota (28.34%)
- Rhode Island (27.92%)
Apparently Rhode Island is the place to get your drink on and your smoke on. But for the other Top Five Stoner States, binge drinking rates fall somewhere in the middle of the country from Oregon (21.71%) and Alaska (22.74%) toward the lower range and Vermont (25.57%) and Colorado (26.15%) toward the upper range. Unsurprisingly, Utah (15.64%) is at the bottom of this list as well. I suppose if Jell-O vodka shots aren’t bumping that number up, ganja Jell-O won’t likely work, either.
I’m not surprised that California doesn’t top that list.
In fact, it falls right in line with what all the evidence suggests happens when you end prohibition. Usage goes down.
Looking at that again, I’m more suprised at Massachusetts not topping the binge drinking list.
We have a LOT of colleges here and Bars EVERYWHERE.
UMASS is notorious for being a party school.
Could it be that in the places where Marijuana is a little more commonplace we are seeing sharp declines in drinking?
I am not surprised that Minnesota is near the top of binge drinking states. I guess that kinda happens when the snows start falling by the foot around October 1st and can be expected to fall until around the 1st of June.
this is bs i know at least 40% of hawaii smokes
Interesting tidbit…Wisconsin is the only state that allows adults to buy alcohol for kids in bars
lol, not a surprise about WI. I’m surrounded by drunks!!!
I can’t believe California didn’t make the list. We love to smoke in California. We must have been too loaded to respond to the survey.
I wonder where we rank on the Jello consumption list.