Marijuana Facts and FAQs
STRAIGHT ANSWERS ON HEALTH, YOUTH, LEGALIZATION, AND RESCHEDULING
Marijuana facts, without the marketing. These are the questions we get most from parents, reporters, legislators, and people who use marijuana, answered from the federal data and peer-reviewed research, with a source for every number.
Is marijuana harmful? What the research shows
The short answer: today’s high-potency marijuana is linked to addiction, psychosis, depression, suicide, and heart, lung, and brain harms. Every figure below has a primary source.
Is marijuana addictive?
Yes. Marijuana addiction, which doctors call cannabis use disorder, is recognized by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the American Psychiatric Association, and the World Health Organization. In 2025, 19.3 million Americans met the clinical criteria, 31 percent of everyone who used marijuana that year. Among teenagers who use it, the figure is 50 percent. Nearly half of regular users experience withdrawal when they stop. Read the full evidence on our Is Marijuana Addictive? page.
Does marijuana cause psychosis or schizophrenia?
Marijuana use is strongly and consistently linked to psychosis, and studies that follow people over time show the use comes first. Daily users of high-potency marijuana have about four times the odds of a psychotic disorder (The Lancet Psychiatry, 2019). Danish researchers estimate one in five schizophrenia cases among young men could be prevented by preventing marijuana addiction. A 2026 Lancet Psychiatry review concluded there is “no universally safe level of cannabis use.” See Marijuana and Mental Health.
Is today’s marijuana stronger than it used to be?
Much stronger. Average THC in marijuana seized by the DEA rose from about 4 percent in 1995 to over 16 percent in 2022. Concentrates averaged 56 percent THC by 2017, and vapes and dabs sold in dispensaries today reach 99 percent. Most of the research the industry cites as reassuring was done on a drug a fraction as potent as the one now sold. Addiction and psychosis risk both rise with potency. Full data and the case for a cap: Marijuana potency: how strong is weed today?
Isn’t marijuana safer than alcohol?
Alcohol being legal and harmful is not an argument for adding a second addictive industry. Daily marijuana use is associated with a 25 percent higher risk of heart attack and a 42 percent higher risk of stroke (Journal of the American Heart Association, 2024), a nearly fourfold lung cancer risk among people with cannabis use disorder (2026), and psychosis risk alcohol does not carry. Marijuana is not replacing alcohol either: Gallup found in 2026 that marijuana users are about twice as likely to drink. The full answer, with the data and Kevin Sabet on video, is in Why Is Alcohol Legal but Not Marijuana?
Does marijuana treat anxiety, depression, PTSD, or chronic pain?
The randomized trials say no. A 2025 review in JAMA found trial evidence “does not support the use of cannabis or cannabinoids for most conditions” for which they are promoted. A 2026 meta-analysis of 54 randomized trials in The Lancet Psychiatry found cannabinoids do not effectively treat anxiety, depression, PTSD, or psychosis and warned that prescribing them increases addiction. At the 2026 DEA hearing, the FDA official who led the rescheduling review conceded that for PTSD, marijuana’s risks outweigh its benefits.
What about medical marijuana? Isn’t that real medicine?
Real medicine goes through the FDA. Cannabinoid medicines that did, such as Epidiolex for severe childhood epilepsy and dronabinol for chemotherapy nausea, are legal and prescribed today. SAM supports that path and helped write the 2022 federal law expanding marijuana research. What state “medical” programs sell is different: raw plant and concentrates at the same THC levels as recreational products, recommended by card mills, with no dosing, no trials, and no pharmacist. A 2026 University of Michigan study found 34 percent of “medical” users aged 40 to 60 reported symptoms of cannabis use disorder, more than recreational users. What the FDA approved, what the trials found condition by condition, and who actually holds the cards: is marijuana medicine?
Is marijuana a gateway drug?
The data show a strong association, especially for early use. A 2026 Washington University study found people who started marijuana before age 15 were 1.6 to 4.2 times more likely to have an opioid use disorder. Federal survey data show marijuana users are far more likely than non-users to use cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl. Marijuana dependence also predicts later alcohol and nicotine dependence. Not everyone who uses marijuana moves on to other drugs, but most people who do started with marijuana or alcohol.
Can marijuana kill you?
Not by classic overdose the way opioids do, which is the industry’s favorite talking point. But between 2000 and 2024 more than 20,000 U.S. deaths listed marijuana poisoning or a marijuana-related disorder as a cause. People hospitalized for marijuana addiction face roughly 10 times the suicide risk within five years. Marijuana is the most common substance found in the toxicology of Colorado youth who die by suicide. One in four Colorado road deaths involves marijuana. Read the stories of families who lost someone, and the full count with every study: Can you die from marijuana?
What is cannabis hyperemesis syndrome?
A condition caused by heavy, long-term marijuana use in which people suffer repeated cycles of severe nausea and vomiting, often relieved only by hot showers. About 6 percent of past-year users report symptoms. Emergency visits for it rose fivefold between 2016 and 2022, and the CDC reports the highest rates among people aged 15 to 24. A 2026 JAMA review concluded the only reliable cure is complete abstinence.
Marijuana and kids: what parents need to know
Teenagers face the highest risk of every harm on this page. Here is what the federal data show, including the honest caveat.
Is teen marijuana use rising in legal states?
Nationally, teen use is near historic lows, and the industry says so often. Look closer. Teens in legal states use marijuana at significantly higher rates than teens in non-legal states (9.4 versus 6.4 percent past-month use). Cannabis use disorder among 12- to 17-year-olds rose 25 percent after legalization. Half of teens who use marijuana now meet the criteria for addiction, and 9.7 percent of teen users use daily, compared with 0.3 percent of teen drinkers. Marijuana-related pediatric emergency visits rose 82 percent from 2016 to 2021.
Why is marijuana worse for teenagers than adults?
The brain keeps developing until about 25, and THC acts on the system that wires it. People who start before 18 are four to seven times more likely to become addicted. Persistent adolescent-onset users lost an average of 8 IQ points by adulthood, and the points did not return after quitting. Teen users have twice the odds of dropping out of high school and 28 percent lower odds of attending university. A 2026 Johns Hopkins study of 740,000 records found youth with cannabis use disorder had 52 percent higher risk of later schizophrenia than youth with other substance disorders.
How do I know if my child has a problem?
The medical criteria are the same as for any addiction: using more than intended, failing to cut down, craving, dropping activities, continuing despite problems at school or home, needing more for the same effect, and withdrawal (irritability, insomnia, anxiety) when stopping. Two or more in a year is a diagnosis. Watch for paranoia, hearing or seeing things, or detachment from reality, which are signs of marijuana psychosis and need a doctor. SAMHSA’s helpline is free and confidential: 1-800-662-4357. The Parent Action Network connects you with parents who have been through it.
Are marijuana edibles dangerous for children?
Yes. Accidental edible marijuana exposures among children under six rose 1,375 percent between 2017 and 2021, from 207 cases to 3,054. A 2022 study found 15 percent of marijuana edibles resembled knockoffs of popular candy and snack brands, and a 2024 study found cartoon characters and gummy-bear shapes draw children’s attention away from warning labels. Every legal state promised child-resistant packaging. The poison-control numbers show how that went.
What is delta-8, THCA, or “gas station weed”?
Intoxicating THC products sold as “hemp” through a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill, in gas stations and vape shops with no age checks, no testing, and no potency limits. 11.4 percent of adults aged 19 to 30 used them in 2025, and 9 percent of 12th graders. Poison-control calls for delta-8, delta-10, and THC-O rose 86 percent in one year. A 2026 study found about 80 percent of “hemp” THC edibles cannot be made from hemp at all. Congress voted to close the loophole; the ban takes effect December 11, 2026. Read our hemp-derived THC explainer.
Did legalization deliver what it promised?
Twelve years of state data. The black market, the tax windfall, the social justice gains, and the road safety numbers, checked against the promises.
How many states have legalized marijuana?
Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia allow recreational sales; about 40 allow some form of “medical” marijuana. A majority of states still reject recreational legalization, and the vast majority of localities in “legal” states ban retail sales. Momentum has reversed: since 2022, seven of ten recreational ballot measures have failed, Florida’s 2026 initiative collapsed after tens of thousands of invalid signatures, and Massachusetts votes November 3, 2026 on Question 8, the first-ever measure to repeal an existing recreational market. The full 50-state table is at Marijuana laws by state.
Doesn’t legalization eliminate the black market?
No state has managed it. In California, the illicit market outsells the legal one roughly three to one, and the state seized more than 63,000 pounds of illegal marijuana in a single quarter of 2026, eight years after legal sales began. Oklahoma has counted more than 3,000 illegal grows, 80 percent linked to Chinese criminal groups. Legal markets give the illicit market cover, customers, and cheaper untaxed competition. Cartels did not go home; they diversified. This and twelve other industry claims, checked: marijuana myths and facts.
Does marijuana tax revenue pay for the costs?
No. A Colorado analysis found every $1 in marijuana tax revenue is associated with about $4.50 in costs to the state. Marijuana excise taxes have never exceeded 1.5 percent of any state’s revenue. Mature markets are now shrinking: Michigan’s new wholesale tax came in $70 million under projection in 2026, and California’s marijuana tax receipts have declined for consecutive quarters as prices collapse and the illicit market undercuts licensed stores.
Isn’t legalization a social justice issue?
Arrests for possession fell, and SAM supported removing criminal penalties for use before most states legalized. What followed was not justice. The rate of marijuana-related emergency visits among Black Americans is four times the rate among white Americans. Dispensaries cluster in lower-income, racially diverse neighborhoods. The industry’s licenses, profits, and lobbying money went overwhelmingly to large, well-funded operators, not to the communities that bore the harm of the drug war. See who funds marijuana legalization.
Does legalization increase impaired driving?
Yes. In Colorado, the share of traffic deaths involving marijuana rose from 9 percent in 2000 to 21.5 percent in 2018; today one in four Colorado road deaths involves marijuana. Nearly half of high school students who use marijuana (48.8 percent) report driving after using it, more than double the share who drive after drinking. Unlike alcohol, there is no roadside test and no agreed impairment threshold, which is why states are still arguing about how to catch it.
Is marijuana legal under federal law?
No. Marijuana remains a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act, and state legalization does not change that. In April 2026 the administration moved FDA-approved marijuana drugs and state-licensed medical marijuana products to Schedule III and opened an expedited proceeding on rescheduling marijuana generally. Even if that proceeding finishes, marijuana would still be federally illegal to sell for recreational use. Rescheduling is not legalization; it is a tax break and a marketing label.
Marijuana rescheduling, the DEA hearing, and the Medicare hemp program
The two federal actions of 2026, what they change, and where SAM is fighting them.
What is marijuana rescheduling, and what happened in 2026?
Federal law sorts controlled substances into five schedules. Schedule I means high abuse potential and no currently accepted medical use; Schedule III means accepted medical use and moderate abuse potential. On April 22, 2026, the President directed the DEA to fast-track moving marijuana to Schedule III, skipping the scientific review the law requires. On April 23 the Department of Justice and DEA issued an order that did two things at once: it immediately placed FDA-approved marijuana drugs and state-licensed medical marijuana products in Schedule III, and it set an expedited administrative hearing on rescheduling marijuana generally, which would cover the recreational market. SAM called the order illegal and said so in the strongest possible terms.
What would moving marijuana to Schedule III actually change?
It would not legalize marijuana, free anyone from prison, or change a single state law. It would hand the industry billions in federal tax deductions it is currently denied under Section 280E, open Wall Street to marijuana companies (Trulieve listed on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2026, weeks after the medical order), and let the industry market a drug 19.3 million Americans are addicted to as government-certified “medicine.” That is why the industry has spent so heavily on it. Congress, not the executive branch, should decide a policy question this large.
What happened at the DEA rescheduling hearing?
The expedited hearing on rescheduling marijuana generally ran June 29 to July 16, 2026, before Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius. SAM was one of seven designated participants, presented public-health witnesses, and subpoenaed the DEA’s own scientist. The government called only two witnesses, neither a pharmacologist. Under questioning, the DEA’s witness acknowledged marijuana would fail the five-part test for accepted medical use, and the FDA official who led the review conceded that for PTSD the risks outweigh the benefits. Closing briefs were filed August 17; SAM’s was joined by Idaho, Indiana, and Nebraska. The judge’s recommendation is pending, and the final decision rests with the DEA Administrator.
Who is challenging rescheduling in court?
Several parties. A coalition of Republican-led state attorneys general sued in June 2026 to overturn the April 23 order, arguing the Justice Department and DEA bypassed the procedures the Controlled Substances Act requires. SAM, represented by Torridon Law, is a designated party in the DEA proceeding and is preserving the record for appeal. In the House, the FY2027 appropriations bill advanced with a rider blocking rescheduling. Former Attorney General Bill Barr and SAM president Kevin Sabet made the case against reclassification in The Washington Post in July 2026.
Is it unfair that marijuana is in Schedule I with heroin?
Schedule I is not a ranking of danger. It is a legal finding that a substance has high abuse potential and no accepted medical use as a whole drug, and the DEA’s own witness conceded in 2026 that marijuana fails the accepted-medical-use test. Schedule I has never blocked real medicine: GHB was Schedule I when the FDA approved a prescription form of it, and Epidiolex, derived from marijuana, went through trials and is now prescribed. The path to marijuana medicine runs through the FDA, not through rescheduling the raw plant so dispensaries can call gummies medicine.
What is the Medicare hemp program, and why is SAM suing?
In 2026 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched the Substance Access Beneficiary Engagement Incentive, a pilot that lets participating Medicare accountable care organizations give seniors up to $500 a year of hemp-derived CBD and THC products that the FDA has never approved for any condition, with up to 3 milligrams of THC per serving. It began April 1, 2026 in the ACO REACH and Enhancing Oncology models. SAM sued in April 2026 to stop the federal government from handing untested intoxicants to seniors. A district court dismissed the case on standing grounds in May, and SAM appealed to the D.C. Circuit in June. In Kevin Sabet’s words: “This fight is far from over, and we will not stand by while CMS allows for non-FDA-approved products to be given out to seniors.”
What is the federal hemp THC ban?
In late 2025 Congress voted to close the 2018 Farm Bill loophole by redefining hemp to exclude intoxicating products (more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per serving, or synthetic cannabinoids). Thirty-five state attorneys general urged Congress to keep it on schedule. Under pressure from the hemp industry, Congress delayed the effective date by one month in a September 2026 funding bill, to December 11, 2026. SAM opposed the delay and opposes any further carve-outs: gas stations should not sell intoxicating THC to teenagers, and no one has offered a public-health reason why they should.
Does SAM want to arrest people who use marijuana?
No. SAM opposes incarceration for marijuana use and supports removing criminal penalties for possession, paired with real investment in prevention, treatment, and recovery. What we oppose is a commercial industry selling 99 percent THC products with no potency caps, no honest warnings, and no accountability for the addiction and mental illness that follow. That is not a “war on drugs.” It is the same public-health approach that cut smoking in half.
If not legalization, what does SAM support?
Stop commercialization, not people. Concretely: THC potency caps like Vermont’s and Connecticut’s; addiction and psychosis warning labels on every THC product; a ban on “non-addictive” and “medicine” marketing claims; local control so communities can keep stores out; treatment and prevention funded from any state that sells; real-time public data on marijuana emergencies; research into marijuana-derived medicines through the FDA; and no federal rescheduling that rewards the industry before the science is settled. Our 2026-27 Impact Report and Local Control Toolkit have the details.
Who we are and who pays for it
The questions reporters and opponents ask most, answered plainly.
Who is Smart Approaches to Marijuana?
SAM is a nonpartisan, nonprofit alliance of physicians, scientists, policymakers, and concerned citizens founded in 2013 by former Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, Dr. Kevin Sabet, and Luke Niforatos. We educate the public on the science of marijuana and promote health-first policies that reduce marijuana use and its consequences, with a focus on preventing the rise of another Big Tobacco. SAM has been a designated participant in the DEA rescheduling proceedings, drafted the 2022 federal marijuana research law, and publishes the annual Lessons Learned Impact Report.
Where does SAM’s funding come from? Big Pharma? The alcohol industry?
No. SAM does not take money from the alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical, or marijuana industries. We are funded by family foundations and individuals, many of them families who have lost someone to marijuana, and we publish our funding annually. See Our Funding. The money question is worth asking in the other direction too: the campaigns for legalization and rescheduling are financed by the industry that profits from them, and we track it on Who Funds Marijuana Legalization.
Most Americans support legalization. Aren’t you fighting a losing battle?
Support is falling, not rising. Gallup’s 2025 survey put support for legalization at 64 percent, its lowest since 2019, with a 13-point drop among Republicans. A 2024 Gallup poll found 54 percent of Americans believe marijuana has a negative effect on society. Since 2022, seven of ten recreational ballot measures have failed. Massachusetts will vote in November 2026 on repealing its recreational market. Americans supported cigarettes too, until they saw what the industry was doing to their families. The science, not the poll, should set policy.
How can I get help, or get involved?
If you or someone you love is struggling with marijuana, SAMHSA’s National Helpline is free, confidential, and open 24 hours a day: 1-800-662-4357, or findtreatment.gov. In an emergency, call 911 or 988. Parents can join the Parent Action Network. Clinicians, educators, and coalitions can book a SAM training and download our one-pagers and Impact Report. Journalists and legislators can reach us at info@learnaboutsam.org.
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