Majority Of Americans Think Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol For The First Time Ever.

A YouGov survey of 1,148 American adults has found that 64 percent of respondents now consider regular alcohol use more dangerous to a person's health than cannabis, while only 14 percent said the opposite, marking a significant milestone in how Americans perceive the two substances and reflecting a shift that has been building quietly across multiple polls for the better part of a decade. A separate 53 percent of respondents said they believe both alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than marijuana, and 63 percent said tobacco specifically is more dangerous than cannabis, meaning a substantial majority of the country has now reached the conclusion that the two most legal and socially accepted recreational substances in America are both more harmful than the one that remains federally prohibited. The findings are consistent with a Gallup poll released around the same time that found marijuana ranked lowest in perceived harmfulness out of eight commonly used substances, below alcohol, cigarettes, prescription opioids, non-prescription opioids, vapes, and technology. The same Gallup data found that more American adults now smoke cannabis daily than drink alcohol daily: 8 percent versus 5 percent.

The survey also found that 62 percent of Americans believe cannabis should be legalized nationally, including 71 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of independents, and 46 percent of Republicans, and that 56 percent of adults have tried marijuana at some point in their lives. Of those who have never tried it, 67 percent said they would continue to abstain even if it were legalized nationwide, suggesting that legalization is not expected to dramatically expand the user base. A separate April 2026 YouGov survey found that majority support for recreational cannabis legalization was highest among Americans aged 45 to 64, a demographic that was once among the most skeptical, which researchers described as a meaningful generational inversion. The legal and scientific landscape around cannabis has changed substantially in recent years, with the DEA having moved to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under federal law, acknowledging its medical uses and lower abuse potential relative to substances like heroin, though the reclassification process is still ongoing. What the polling captures is a public that has largely reached its own conclusions ahead of federal policy.

Source:https://techfixated.com/a-majority-of-americans-now-believe-that-cannabis-is-safer-than-alcohol/