San Francisco ranks top spot in Marijuana use in the USA: SAMHSA

Posted by Sagar Satapathy on July 29, 2016.

A new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) finds that more than 15 percent of San Francisco residents age 12 and over used marijuana in past month, which has been considered the highest rate of marijuana use in the USA.

The report shows that nationally, 7.7 percent of people age 12 and older, approximately 20.3 million people of the United States, used marijuana in last month. It also says that marijuana use rates are highest in the Western states and lowest in the South. The lowest marijuana use rates are in the southern part of Texas, where less than 4 percent of residents use marijuana monthly.

Art Hughes, a SAMHSA statistician and a lead author on the report, revealed that overall marijuana usage rates are up by less than 1 percentage point since the period from 2010 to 2012.

The report comes several months ahead of the November ballot, where as many as eight states will decide whether to legalize either recreational or medical marijuana.

Use of medical marijuana remains illegal under federal law but the District of Columbia and 23 states, including San Francisco, have legalized marijuana for medical purposes. However, recreational use of marijuana is legal in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington State and the District of Columbia.

SAMHSA analyzed various regions around the country to determine the rates of marijuana use and “perceptions of risks of harm” associated with the drug’s use by using data collected by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2012 to 2014 that includes responses from approximately 204,000 people across the country.

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