A commenter named Christopher on the NORML Blog had this to mention about my previous Who Are You? post:
I would like to know the percentage of smokers, from those charts, that are successful. The biggest argument I hear is that Marijuana makes you lazy and unable to do real work. So what percentage of average smokers are bums and what percentage are productive members of society?
Ask and ye shall receive. According to the Quick Tables at SAMHDA based on results from the 2007 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, people who have smoked pot are better educated and work harder than people who never have smoked pot.
| EMPLOYED FULL TIME |
EMPLOYED PART TIME |
UNEMPLOYED | OTHER/ NOT IN LABOR FORCE |
|
| NEVER USED MARIJUANA | 48.7% | 56.5% | 46.2% | 73.7% |
| HAVE USED MARIJUANA | 51.3% | 43.5% | 53.8% | 26.3% |
Now it’s likely the employment data have changed since 2007, but at first glance, it appears that the majority of people employed full-time and the majority of the unemployed have smoked marijuana. The 43.5% figure for the part time workers makes sense, if you figure that more low-skilled, part-time positions are likely to face a drug test.
Based on the responses, about two-thirds (67.8%) of all American adults are employed part-time or full-time, and the unemployed account for 3.2% of all adults (remember, 2007 figures, plus these numbers will vary from official unemployment statistics because some of those “others” would be counted as unemployed, but aren’t in this survey.)
But when you break these numbers down for only those American adults who have used marijuana, we find that over three-quarters (78.3%) of all marijuana users are employed part-time or full-time. To be fair, a larger proportion (4% vs. 3.2%) of marijuana users are unemployed than the proportion for all adults, but not so much as to be statistically significant.
There are 12.9 million American Adults, out of the 22 million total who have smoked at least once a year, who are employed full time. When we break down their use by frequency, we find the largest proportion, well over a third (36%) of full-time employed marijuana smokers are using more than 100 days per year. That’s 4.7 million full-time employed chronic marijuana users – and they can’t all be snowboarders, rappers, and head shop owners.
Finally, almost half of American Adults who have one year or more of college education have smoked marijuana, while among those with only a high school diploma / GED or less educational attainment, about one-third have smoked marijuana. I’m not saying that smoking marijuana will make you smarter, but it seems the smarter you are, the more likely you’ll smoke marijuana.
So there you have it. The “average” pot smoker, if there is such a thing, is a white, college educated, full-time employed male under the age of fifty. In other words… ME! 🙂