With recreational marijuana now legal in 24 statesthe United States Drug Enforcement Administration is preparing to reclassify the drug to a less dangerous category under the Controlled Substances Act.
This comes as daily marijuana users now outnumber daily drinkers for the first time, according to a new report from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
This change in preference is largely attributable to young people. Among people ages 18 to 24, 69% prefer marijuana to alcohol, according to a 2022 survey by New Frontier Data, a cannabis research company.
Work ‘N’ Roll, a shared workspace located in downtown New York, is among the organizations hoping to capitalize on the trend among young workers. For as little as $15, guests can smoke while they type.
“We smoke here because it makes our work better. It’s our secret sauce,” said Work ‘N’ Roll customer Matthew Everett.
“I switched to cannabis because I saw there were limitless possibilities with flavors,” he added. “And I found out that, hey, I don’t have a hangover the next day either.”
Marijuana sales among Gen Z women in particular have more than doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020, according to Headset, a cannabis analytics company.
At Work ‘N’ Roll, alcohol is prohibited, but you are welcome to bring your own cannabis or have it delivered to your door.
But not everyone views the rise in marijuana use as a positive, including addiction psychiatrist Colin Reiff.
Reiff cites a recent National Institute of Health study that links schizophrenia to excessive cannabis use among some young people, particularly young men, at an age when their brains are still fully maturing.
“The legal age for cannabis should be around 33, when people are not at risk of developing schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and many other things,” Reiff said. “Or most certainly it should be after age 26, once the prefrontal cortex has finished developing.”
Cannabis has also become more potent over the years. The average level of THC, the main compound in marijuana that triggers its psychoactive effects, has increased from 4% in 1995 to more than 15% in 2021, a fourfold increase, according to the latest figures from the Potency Monitoring Project. from the University of Mississippi. .
But for Everett, those numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“Over time, as I began to educate my parents more, they began to understand that cannabis was less destructive to my lifestyle than alcohol, and I even got them to try cannabis ” said Everett.
When asked how it went, Everett said, “They appreciated it. My mother had cancer and it helped with some of her symptoms, and for his part, my father found that It was quite fun.”
For Golda Moldavsky and Ellis Sudak, two other Work ‘N’ Roll patrons in their 20s, there’s no shortage of alcohol.
“I honestly never thought I wouldn’t be here,” Moldavsky said.
“I don’t miss it,” Sudak said.
Nikki Battiste
Grub5
