607. Is America Switching From Booze to Weed?

Summary

Freakonomics Radio Episode 607: Is America Switching From Booze to Weed?

Release Date: October 17, 2024

In Episode 607 of Freakonomics Radio, host Stephen J. Dubner explores the intriguing shift in substance use trends in America—from traditional alcohol consumption to the rising popularity of cannabis. This comprehensive, four-part series delves into the historical, economic, and public health dimensions of this transition, offering listeners a nuanced understanding of its implications.

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Introduction: The Changing Landscape of Substance Use

The episode opens in Sheffield, Massachusetts, at a busy retail shop called The Pass, where customers share their personal reasons for choosing cannabis over alcohol. Dubner introduces the premise with compelling firsthand accounts:

• Michael Siegel (02:04): "This is pretty much the only way to get my brain to shut off, to actually fall asleep."
• John Calkins (02:25): "It's just nice to know that it's legal now."

Dubner highlights a striking statistic: in the United States, daily or near-daily cannabis users now outnumber those who use alcohol with the same frequency. This phenomenon raises critical questions about societal shifts and the underlying factors driving this change.

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Historical Context: From Ancient Civilizations to Modern Legislation

To understand the present trend, Dubner traces the historical roots of both alcohol and cannabis use:

• Tom Standage, Author of A History of the World in Six Glasses (07:15): "People would have made a sort of barley or wheat rich soup, and then they might have left it out and it would have naturally fermented with wild yeast."

Standage emphasizes alcohol's central role in ancient economies and its contribution to human civilization. Conversely, the history of cannabis in the U.S. is marked by fluctuating legal statuses and cultural perceptions. Dubner explains how cannabis shifted from a widely used plant for various purposes to a prohibited substance, culminating in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 under President Nixon, who controversially labeled drug use as the nation's "number one public enemy" despite personal reservations about its dangers (24:07).

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Public Health Perspectives: Alcohol vs. Cannabis

The episode juxtaposes the well-documented harms of alcohol with the evolving understanding of cannabis:

• John Calkins (37:31): "The effects of alcohol in our society are overwhelming. At least 100,000 deaths a year are attributable to alcohol."

Dubner references data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), revealing that excessive alcohol use results in approximately 180,000 deaths annually in the U.S., with significant societal costs including healthcare and lost productivity.

In contrast, cannabis, though increasing in use, presents a different risk profile. Yasmin Hurd (27:09), a neuroscientist studying substance use disorders, points out the vast variability in individual responses to cannabis and the lack of comprehensive research on its long-term effects, especially given the potency of modern strains (31:14).

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Addiction and Behavioral Impacts

The discussion delves into the addictive potential of both substances:

• John Calkins (40:46): "There's no question that cannabis qualifies as an addictive drug."

While alcohol is established as a significant public health issue, alcohol industry influence on research and policy remains problematic. Conversely, the cannabis industry is still grappling with understanding its long-term impacts. Hurd emphasizes the need for extensive research to comprehend how high concentrations of THC affect users both short-term and long-term (32:49).

Furthermore, the "gateway drug" theory is examined, with evidence suggesting that cannabis use may lead to increased alcohol consumption, contrary to claims that it serves as a substitute for harmful substances (42:45).

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Cannabis as a Potential Substitute for Alcohol

The episode explores the possibility of cannabis replacing alcohol in American society, presenting varied expert opinions:

• John Calkins (46:40): "If everyone who was using alcohol was instead using cannabis, it would be a much safer, healthier world."

Calkins advocates for a hypothetical scenario where alcohol use is entirely replaced by cannabis, citing the reduced societal harms associated with the latter. However, Yasmin Hurd (47:46) expresses caution, noting the current gaps in scientific understanding and the high prevalence of daily cannabis use posing unknown risks.

Public health experts like Michael Siegel and Yasmin Hurd emphasize the necessity of regulated markets and harm reduction strategies to navigate this potential societal shift responsibly.

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Conclusion and Future Directions

Dubner concludes the first part of the series by acknowledging the complexities involved in the transition from alcohol to cannabis. The forthcoming episodes promise to delve deeper into the economics of the cannabis industry, regulatory challenges, agricultural aspects, and the future trajectory of cannabis use in America.

Listeners are left with a thought-provoking question: as cannabis continues to gain popularity, what will be the long-term consequences for individuals and society? The series aims to unravel these mysteries by engaging with industry insiders, medical professionals, and policy makers.

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Notable Quotes:

• Stephen Dubner (04:18): "You know you can't drink every day and be okay."
• Yasmin Hurd (27:09): "We know that for every addictive substance, the higher the concentration of that particular chemical, the greater the addiction risk."
• John Calkins (46:40): "If everyone who was using alcohol was instead using cannabis, it would be a much safer, healthier world."

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Looking Ahead:

In Part Two, Dubner and his guests will examine the intricate economics of the cannabis industry, exploring why it hasn't developed as predicted and the regulatory hurdles it faces. Subsequent episodes will visit cannabis farms and attempt to forecast the future of America's relationship with cannabis.

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This episode provides a foundational understanding of the current shifts in substance use, setting the stage for a detailed exploration of cannabis as a societal alternative to alcohol. By weaving historical context with contemporary data and expert insights, Freakonomics Radio offers a thorough analysis of one of America's most significant cultural and public health developments.

Transcript

[Stephen Dubner]

Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Capital One Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast. Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com Bank Capital One NA member FDIC Freakonomics radio is sponsored by Mint Mobile. Ditch overpriced wireless by switching to Mint mobile and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone, your own phone number and all your existing contacts to get this new customer offer and your new three month premium wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month go to mintmobile.com freak that's mintmobile.com freak cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com freak $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. On a recent Monday morning, we found ourselves up in the Berkshire Mountains in the town of Sheffield, Massachusetts. There is a dark gray building with a big front porch right on Route 7 and it is home to a retail shop called the Pass. It was pretty busy, especially for Monday morning, and the customers were happy to tell us why they were buying what they were buying. It helps me with pretty much everything. Get through the day, wake up, eat my anxiety.

[Michael Siegel]

This is pretty much the only way to get my brain to shut off, to actually fall asleep.

[Yasmin Hurd]

There's so many different ways you can use it.

[Stephen Dubner]

This is my relaxation.

[John Calkins]

It just takes the edge off for me.

[Michael Siegel]

It just makes everything a little bit better.

[Stephen Dubner]

Everyone could benefit off of it in their own way.

[Yasmin Hurd]

It's, you know, medicine without medicine.

[Stephen Dubner]

What is this alleged elixir, this medicine without medicine? Weed, weed. I got some weed, weed, weed.

[Michael Siegel]

It's all cannabis. I absolutely love it.

[John Calkins]

It's just nice to know that it's legal now.

[Stephen Dubner]

You may know it as weed or marijuana or hemp or pot. Or if you're old enough, maybe you know it as grass or reefer or herb. It has gone by many names in many places and many times. Mary Jane, Sticky, Icky, Chronic, Devil's lettuce, gas, ganja, 420 dope, green goddess flower, zaza, blaze, bud shape, skunk, greenery, kush. We are just going to call it cannabis. That's the name of the actual plant. The most famous component of the plant is THC or tetrahydrocannabinol. That's the one that gets you high. The second best known component is CBD or cannabidiol, which is not intoxicating and tends to be used for things like pain relief. But there are more than 140 cannabinoids found in different strains of the plant. You probably already know that cannabis is now legal in many states even though it remains illegal federally. And you may know that it comes in many forms. Flour, which is just the dried plant for people who smoke, but also edibles, tinctures, beverages, chewing gum, chocolate, nasal spray. Quite a few more. But here's something I bet you don't know. In the US today, there are more DND users of cannabis that stands for daily or near daily than there are daily or near daily users of alcohol. Let that sink in for a minute. Here's what we heard up at the pass.

[Michael Siegel]

It's better if you're gonna use it every day.

[Stephen Dubner]

You know you can't drink every day and be okay.

[Michael Siegel]

If I'm in like a social situation.

[Stephen Dubner]

I'm not gonna grab a drink, I'm.

[Michael Siegel]

Gonna grab some weed. I was a teenage alcoholic, but now.

[John Calkins]

I've been smoking weed for 60 years.

[Stephen Dubner]

And I'm still alive. Alcohol is still overall much more popular in the U.S. but for a significant group of people, cannabis has become the drug of choice. In a recent Gallup survey, 17% of Americans reported using cannabis. That's up from 7% just 10 years earlier. How did this happen and what does it mean? That's what we want to find out in this special four part series on cannabis.

[John Calkins]

I think if everyone who was using alcohol was instead using cannabis, it would be a much safer, healthier world.

[Stephen Dubner]

In today's episode part one, the harms of alcohol are well established. How about cannabis?

[Yasmin Hurd]

You're talking about needing a whole army to study the effects of cannabis from these new products that we still do not know anything about.

[Stephen Dubner]

In part two, we will get into the bizarre economics of this industry which haven't worked out the way anyone predicted. It's hard to articulate the regulatory complexity of every single thing you have to do. In part three, we will visit the farm.

[Ryan Stoeh]

Smells good, doesn't it?

[Stephen Dubner]

And in part four, we will try to sort out the future. Americans.

[Michael Siegel]

Democrat, Republican, independent, are all supportive of seeing Major cannabis change.

[Stephen Dubner]

Along the way, we will hear from cannabis industry insiders, medical doctors and legal scholars, regulators and politicians, and a few happy customers.

[Michael Siegel]

It tastes good. I'm really energized.

[Stephen Dubner]

I thought I would be asleep.

[John Calkins]

Oh, I'm enthralled.

[Ryan Stoeh]

I'm so excited.

[Stephen Dubner]

I'm excited, too. We'll see you after the womp, womp, womp. This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything with your host, Stephen Dubner. So let me tell you how this series began. It did not begin as a series about cannabis. We thought we were going to make a series about the economics of the alcohol industry.

[Tom Standage]

When we say cheers and we raise our glasses, we are doing something extremely ancient.

[Stephen Dubner]

Our first interview was with Tom Standage. He's an editor at the Economist in London.

[Tom Standage]

And I'm also the author of a book called A History of the World in Six Glasses.

[Stephen Dubner]

A History of the World in Six Glasses is a very good book. And the interview with Standage was interesting, for sure. He told us that beer is probably the oldest alcoholic beverage and that it was discovered accidentally.

[Tom Standage]

People would have made a sort of barley or wheat rich soup, and then they might have left it out and it would have naturally fermented with wild yeast. There are these pictures of people drinking beer in Mesopotamia from 5,000 years ago, and they're all drinking through straws from the same vessel.

[Stephen Dubner]

Standage told us that beer was central to ancient economies.

[Tom Standage]

We know that the workers who built the pyramids, it was long thought that they were enslaved. Actually, they weren't. They were paid, and they were paid partly in beer.

[Stephen Dubner]

And he told us about the beer theory of civilization. That's the idea that the human embrace of alcohol predated the age of agriculture.

[Tom Standage]

The beer theory of civilization is that people settled down close to wild stands of things like barley in order to be sure that they would have a reliable supply, and therefore a reliable supply of beer.

[Stephen Dubner]

But growing barley and wheat on purpose, cultivating them as crops that would produce even more raw material for more beer, as well as food for eating. Of course, man does not live on booze alone, although I have known a few people who tried. But the reality is that many people have really liked alcohol for a really long time.

[Tom Standage]

You have to look at alcohol as a source of intellectual stimulation, as a source of joy, a source of calories to keep people alive.

[Stephen Dubner]

How important historically was alcohol just to plain human survival in terms of delivering water that didn't make people sick and delivering calories that were substantial and affordable? And portable.

[Tom Standage]

Yes, alcohol does both of those things. If you're worried about a safe water supply, it does work as a purification technology. For example, the Greeks mixed water and wine. They thought that this was to make the wine safe, that if you drank undiluted wine, you'd go nuts. But actually, the wine was making the water safe because the tannins were antibacterial.

[Stephen Dubner]

So alcohol has played a key role in human civilization since the early days, and in many places, it still does. We drink to celebrate. We drink to sanctify. We drink to mourn. We drink with old friends and with people we're just getting to know. We drink when we want to shift a mental gear. Tom Standage, for instance, plays drums in a band.

[Tom Standage]

I play the drums better after a pint of Guinness. I'm more relaxed. But also I'm not overthinking things too much. I'm probably prepared to take a few more risks and try a few more creative things. I do think there is a sort of useful blurriness that can come from drinking the right amount of alcohol.

[Stephen Dubner]

The pursuit of that useful blurriness is, in some places, a national pastime. In the US, more than 60% of US drink at least sometimes, and that has been true for over 150 years. And Covid produced a five and a half percent rise in per capita alcohol consumption. But how much you drink has a lot to do with how old you are and not in the way you might expect.

[Tom Standage]

The main thing that we've observed on both sides of the Atlantic is that younger people are drinking less or not at all. In many cases, and certainly my generation, so I'm in my 50s, we seem to be drinking a lot more.

[Stephen Dubner]

Indeed, 85% of Americans aged 35 to 50 now drink, a much higher number than in the past. And binge drinking among this group, defined as four drinks within two hours for a woman and five drinks for a man. That is now at 30%, the highest ever recorded. So, yeah, we're talking to Tom Standage about alcohol, and it's super interesting. I'm thinking about that Mesopotamian history. I'm thinking about alcohol as a social lubricant. I'm thinking about its antibacterial benefits. But then I start digging into the data about the harms of alcohol, and I am just blown away. According to the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, roughly 180,000Americans die every year from excessive alcohol use. And that number has been rising lately, driven by an increase in women dying from alcohol use. Around 15,000 of these alcohol related deaths come in motor vehicle crashes. And nhtsa, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, reports that alcohol use is up in their data too. But let's put aside death. The CDC estimates that alcohol use costs the US about a quarter of a trillion dollars annually, most of that in lost workplace productivity. But there's $28 billion in healthcare costs, $25 billion in criminal justice costs, on and on. And so I got to thinking. I know that alcohol has been around for a long time and I know it serves many purposes for many people and I personally like it. But if you take all the advantages of alcohol and weigh them against the harms, alcohol does not come out looking very good. Now, you may be thinking, what about the health benefits of alcohol? You've seen all those TV news pieces about red wine preventing cancer, that kind of thing. I started wondering about that too. So I called up Michael Siegel, a public health researcher at Tufts. He said you have to follow the funding.

[John Calkins]

Most of the research which has been funded by alcohol companies, has reported that there is a benefit to drinking moderate amounts of alcohol. On the other hand, most of the research that has not been funded by the industry has found that there actually is not a benefit and that overall mortality is higher.

[Stephen Dubner]

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised by this news. The same thing happened with cigarettes and sugar. An industry will commission researchers from a top university to produce a study that winds up miraculously highlighting only the benefits of their product. Some public health experts still say that moderate alcohol use isn't a big deal. But others say that alcohol is essentially toxic. We are not going to be able to settle that argument today. We are making a different argument. Here's what we are saying. Given that the societal costs of alcohol are so large and that any health benefits are probably overhyped, and given that cannabis use is soaring, is it possible that we have entered the era of cannabis replacement? And if so, what will be the effects of that? Those seem like interesting questions to me. I hope they seem interesting to you too, because that's the series we wound up making. Next step. Now we need a little cannabis history. That's coming up after the break. I'm Stephen Dubner and this is Freakonomics Radio. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by NetSuite. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten answers. Bull market. Bear market rates will rise or fall. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, more than 40,000 businesses have future proofed with NetSuite by Oracle. The number one cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one fluid platform. With real time insights and forecasting, you are peering into the future with actionable data. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com freak the guide is free to you at netsuite.com freak netsuite.com freak Freakonomics radio is sponsored by Merrill with a dedicated Merrill Advisor. You get a personalized plan for your financial goals and when plans change. Merrill's with you every step of the way. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company what would you like the power to do? Investing Involves Risk Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Inc. Registered Broker Dealer Registered Investment Advisor member SIPC Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by GiveWell. You like to optimize things. You've chosen the perfect credit card to maximize your travel points. Shouldn't you handle your charitable giving the same way? GiveWell spends 50,000 hours each year doing deep dives into different charitable programs to try to find the ways to do the most good for your dollar. GiveWell wants as many donors as possible to make informed decisions about high impact giving. You can find all of their research and recommendations on their site for free. You can make tax deductible donations to their recommended funds or charities and GiveWell doesn't take a cut. Go to givewell.org to find out more or make a donation, select podcast and enter Freakonomics Radio at checkout to make sure they know you heard about them from us. Again, that's givewell.org donate or find out more. Okay, for some history on cannabis we are going to rely on two people. The first is Ryan Stoeh.

[Ryan Stoeh]

I'm an Associate professor of law at the Louisiana State University Law Center.

[Stephen Dubner]

Stoeh has written a book called Craft Family Farming and the Future of the Marijuana Industry. He also published a fascinating article in the MIT Press Reader called A Brief Global History of the War on Cannabis so you can see where he's coming from.

[Ryan Stoeh]

You know, we've had a lot of attention in the last several decades on the legalization question, should we legalize? And that feels like it's been answered. The next question is how should we regulate it? And maybe the bigger picture question is what do we want the cannabis industry to be?

[Stephen Dubner]

The second person we'll hear from is John Calkins.

[Michael Siegel]

I'm a professor of Operations Research and Public policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College.

[Stephen Dubner]

And what does operations research mean?

[Michael Siegel]

Operations research these days may be better known as analytics. The name comes from World War II when it was analyzing military operations. Best way to think about it is engineering and applied mathematics applied to solving practical decision problems.

[Stephen Dubner]

And what does that have to do with cannabis or other drugs?

[Michael Siegel]

When I was in grad school, I wanted to study something that would help make the world a better place. I assumed that was going to be energy, environment, telecommunications. But I recognized that at that time, if you surveyed the American public, they said the number one problem facing the nation was illegal drugs. And so I decided I would focus on that.

[Stephen Dubner]

Can I just ask, what's your personal view of drugs? And let's use drugs to include, you know, nicotine, caffeine, marijuana, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What do you like and not like?

[Michael Siegel]

You can ask. I won't answer. I'm highly committed to the idea that science should be observer, independent, dispassionate, and objective.

[Stephen Dubner]

Okay, let's go with dispassionate and objective. By the way, Calkins is the researcher who put together the data I cited earlier about the massive rise in daily or near daily use of cannabis and how it has eclipsed alcohol. He pulled that data from the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

[Michael Siegel]

For 15 years I've been drawing this graph, and every single year, I've watched it increase. Back in 1992, there were 10 times as many Americans who self reported daily or near daily drinking as self reported daily or near daily cannabis use. But cannabis use has grown enormously since that nadir in 1992. And finally, after the 2022 survey data became available, that was the first year in which the cannabis line crossed the alcohol line.

[Stephen Dubner]

Okay, so how did we get here? Let's start the cannabis story at the beginning.

[Michael Siegel]

Cannabis has a long, long history going back thousands of years.

[Stephen Dubner]

And Ryan Stella, again, there are some.

[Ryan Stoeh]

People that believe cannabis may have been one of the original crops that brought about the Neolithic revolution, when humans transitioned from being hunter gatherers to being a more fixed agricultural species. The plant is so versatile and can be used for food, it can be used for fiber. It can be used for religious or spiritual or just recreational purposes.

[Stephen Dubner]

Did it tend to be more popular among elites or.

[Ryan Stoeh]

No, it was probably consumed by all classes of people. But when we saw prohibition measures take place around the world, it was generally aimed at the lower classes. Drug prohibition historically has been used as a tool of oppression. So it's not necessarily the drug itself that the ruling classes are concerned about, but rather using drug prohibition as a tool to make sure that there isn't a religious or economic changing of the guard, so to speak. The Catholic Church hasn't been terribly fond of cannabis over the years. Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal ban on cannabis in the first year of his papacy. This was in 1484, so clearly a huge priority for him. Really wanted to promote this idea that fulfillment comes in the afterlife and we want to reject these momentary pleasures that we feel than this body that we have now.

[Stephen Dubner]

What is the typical prohibitionists playbook?

[Ryan Stoeh]

Associate the plant with violence, associate cannabis with depravity, associate with other dangerous drugs, portray cannabis users as religious extremists or dangerous minorities and help turn the tide against that population and towards prohibition. Those are all tried and true strategies that we've seen over the years.

[Stephen Dubner]

Okay, and how about a brief history of cannabis in the US John Adams.

[Ryan Stoeh]

Writes this two page to do list on his way to the Continental Congress. On page one of the to do list is quote, hemp to be encouraged, unquote. On page two was the Declaration of Independence. So higher up on his priority list, perhaps. I mean, American farmers were growing hemp for quite a long time, even into the 20th century, and were a dominant force.

[Michael Siegel]

It's absolutely true that in say the 19th century, Americans were growing the cannabis plant, but they were growing it to make rope and shirts and so on. The use of cannabis as an intoxicant really did not become a major issue until the 20th century. And honestly, even in the first half of the 20th century, it was pretty darn uncommon.

[Ryan Stoeh]

Early 20th century we saw psychoactive marijuana strains coming up from Mexico or Latin America, popularized in the U.S. south, and of course went northward, embraced by proponents and fans and musicians of the jazz era. And so as jazz spread around the United States, so too did marijuana use.

[Michael Siegel]

Our original federal law, the Harrison narcotics Act of 1914, was passed primarily because do gooder Americans wanted to push back against the British opium trade in China and didn't want to be over there without a US law saying that the opioids are problematic.

[Stephen Dubner]

But the Harrison narcotics Act of 1914 didn't say anything about cannabis, which was still technically legal. That was about to change.

[Michael Siegel]

So it was first prohibited by states. The federal government came to the party.

[Stephen Dubner]

Late in 1915, California became the first state to criminalize cannabis. By 1931, a majority of states had done the same. And in 1937, Congress completed the ban by passing the Marijuana Tax Act. Marijuana being the term used in Mexico, the regulators were hoping to give the drug a dangerous south of the border vibe.

[Michael Siegel]

Throughout the 20th century, the United States passed a variety of drug specific federal laws. In 1970, that somewhat incoherent assemblage of laws were brought together into an integrated framework called the Controlled Substances Act. It's a myth that that was the beginning of the quote, unquote war on drugs. The laws had been passed long before. It was just a reorganization.

[Stephen Dubner]

It was President Nixon who signed the Controlled Substances Act. He called drug use public enemy number one. And what did Nixon think about cannabis? Here's what he told some White House aides, as captured by his own secret tape recording system.

[John Calkins]

I know that it's not particularly dangerous.

[Stephen Dubner]

I know that it's not particularly dangerous. I know most of the kids are for legalizing it.

[Yasmin Hurd]

It's the wrong signal this time.

[Stephen Dubner]

But on the other hand, it's the wrong signal at this time. Over the next few decades, the signals began to change. Many millions of people were using cannabis, which propped up a massive black market. Millions of people were arrested for selling and using cannabis. And that struck many people as absurd, especially for a drug that even Nixon didn't think was particularly dangerous. Public sentiment shifted, and in 1996, California approved cannabis for medicinal use. Physicians prescribed it for chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, bowel disease, glaucoma, epilepsy, and other conditions. Several states followed California's lead. And then in 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to fully legalize cannabis for recreational use. Back in the Nixon era, only 15% of Americans said they supported legalization for everybody over 21. Today, that number is 70%. Cannabis is fully legal in 24 states as well as Washington, D.C. and it's approved for medical use in another 14 states. And as we've been hearing, consumption is way up. So who's doing the consuming?

[Michael Siegel]

If we do a pie chart of who's using cannabis, it's absolutely dominated by daily, near daily users. The people who only use once or twice a week are an unimportant footnote from the perspective of industry. At one time, people thought marijuana was a young person's drug. It is not. That 1960s association, cannabis and college, that stopped being true long ago. The median age of the user of the median day of use is 35. It's not a young person's substance anymore. Of those daily and near daily users, about half report some evidence of having a substance use disorder. So an important segment of the market is consumption by people who are Providing evidence that they don't have full control over their substance and it's harming them. But are they going to commit violent acts?

[Stephen Dubner]

No.

[Michael Siegel]

Are they going to die of an overdose? No. It's just a very different and far less scary profile of problems.

[Stephen Dubner]

Cannabis advocates insist that it is not addictive. John Calkins data suggests that at the very least, it is habit forming. So I wanted to hear from someone who knows more about addiction.

[Yasmin Hurd]

I'm Yasmin Hurd. I'm the director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. I am a neuroscientist who studies the neurobiology of substance use disorders.

[Stephen Dubner]

Heard is one of the few researchers who studies the addictive potential of cannabis.

[Yasmin Hurd]

People are like, yasmin, why are you studying cannabis? This is not an addictive drug. You should be studying cocaine. However, the number of investigators has increased as the problem of cannabis has risen and as the legalization has risen.

[Stephen Dubner]

She thinks the US has rushed into legalization.

[Yasmin Hurd]

There was this dramatic switch where cannabis was considered, you know, the evil devil. And then it was switched, like, oh, okay, let's start making money. Let's put a dispensary on every block.

[Stephen Dubner]

I asked Heard how she got started as an addiction researcher.

[Yasmin Hurd]

When I told my really close friends that I was going to focus on studying addiction, they all laughed or didn't believe me because they were like, yasmin, you don't use drugs. How can you go into a field that you actually have not done anything? They were like, yasmin, you're from Jamaica and you still don't use cannabis. But with all the stress that occurs in my life, I may actually start using CBD though. But no, I have not imbibed. In terms of smoking cannabis, I think I'm just a chicken because I would need to know every single component of the product. But really, my path down to this science of addiction really came with looking at neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease is a lesion of these dopamine cells in the brain. But these dopamine cells are also critical for reward, motivation, goal directed behavior. And when you study these Parkinson's animal models, you can pharmacologically tease that system with dopamine drugs like cocaine and amphetamine. And I was fascinated by how these drugs completely changed behavior. That was how I got started.

[Stephen Dubner]

So how much variance is there among the human species in the way that they will process a given drug or the way that the dopamine response will happen if you were to take 100 people observationally equivalent in terms of weight and makeup and so on, and give them the same amount of drug. Let's say it's cannabis just for the sake of this conversation. How much variance is there in both the short and long term effects?

[Yasmin Hurd]

There's a lot of variance when individuals take drugs, even if you give them, like you said, the same amount and their same body weight and so on. Part of that is driven by genetics, environment, early life events, for example, can modulate the amount of particular transmitters that you have. And even your stress response can then cause downstream effects in terms of how the drug may have a bigger effect than it would in another person. So the variability between individuals is enormous.

[Stephen Dubner]

What's the difference between how cannabis and alcohol act on the brain?

[Yasmin Hurd]

When we talk about cannabis, we're talking about thc, the main psychoactive component of cannabis that binds to cannabinoid receptors in our brain and body. And these cannabinoid receptors are on cells that indirectly regulate dopamine. Alcohol is a little bit more complex.

[Stephen Dubner]

I thought you were going to say sloppy, actually.

[Yasmin Hurd]

Yes, that's a good word. It's a little bit more sloppy.

[Stephen Dubner]

Tell me what you can about the addictive qualities or magnitude of using cannabis. Just give me a kind of overview and then we'll figure out how to drill down into that.

[Yasmin Hurd]

Okay. That may take a couple hours.

[Stephen Dubner]

That's fine. I've got time.

[Yasmin Hurd]

So thc, that's associated with reward, the reinforcement. THC binds to the cannabinoid receptors in the brain. The cannabinoid receptors are there not for, you know, thc. There therefore are endogenous cannabinoid ligands.

[Stephen Dubner]

Okay. Did you say that we have endogenous cannabinoid ligands?

[Yasmin Hurd]

Correct. We have endogenous cannabinoid ligands.

[Stephen Dubner]

Okay. I don't know what really any of those words mean, so. So if you would, tell me more about that.

[Yasmin Hurd]

So these endogenous cannabinoid ligands are there mediating the actions of multiple biological processes. In fact, cannabinoid receptors are expressed throughout practically every organ in and they modulate aspects of cell development, homeostasis in the brain. They are important for regulating every single aspect from mood motor function, every single thing.

[Stephen Dubner]

It sounds like there's nothing they're not potentially connected to.

[Yasmin Hurd]

Exactly, exactly. They're there from very early in utero because our endogenous cannabinoid systems are critical for hardwiring of the brain in the sense of laying down the blueprint on the cells are formed and the pathways that they make. So when people consume cannabis, THC will bind to the receptor, the endogenous cannabinoid receptors. It's binding at a much higher concentration than the endogenous ligands. So you already have THC binding at supra physiological levels. The original plant on the planet that was like 2 to 4% THC. Today you have concentrations of THC. Depending on the product, that can go from 10 to 90% THC. So that becomes a huge issue. We know that for every addictive substance, the higher the concentration of that particular chemical, the greater the addiction risk.

[Stephen Dubner]

I've seen you and others argue that the legalization of cannabis in the US has really outpaced the research and the science. If I had to guess, I would say that it's simply not known how cannabis at that potency will react or will affect people short term and especially long term. Is that about right?

[Yasmin Hurd]

That's completely correct. No one has studied the majority of products that are out there today. You have hundreds of products. So scientists were still, you know, studying these low concentrations of THC on so many different biological processes because it is complex. There's so many things that we need to know about cannabis effects on health, what's cannabis effects on cognition, what's cannabis effects on reward addiction, what's cannabis effects on motor function. So you're talking about needing a whole army to study the effects of cannabis from a scientific perspective on these new products that we still do not know anything about. Cannabis was considered a Schedule 1 drug by the DEA, meaning that it was highly addictive with no medicinal purpose. And that drove a lot of challenges for researchers because, you know, I don't think people realize in order to do this research with a Schedule 1 drug, there are a lot of regulatory hurdles that you have to jump through. Even being able to give a small dose of THC to a rath, it's like thousand page things.

[Stephen Dubner]

So millions of people are using a drug whose risks, according to Yasmin Hurd, are not fully understood. We will hear more later in the series about how cannabis may soon be removed from that Schedule 1 drug listing. Coming up after the break, how do the risks of cannabis compare to the risks of alcohol? I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio. We'll be right back. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Sylvania. Sylvania's lighting experts want you to know that headlights dim over time and can lose up to 50ft of visibility before burnout. That's roughly the length of a tractor trailer, so it's important to change them before they burn out. Sylvania Headlights deliver a brighter, whiter light to improve your visibility on the road and help reduce glare distraction. Learn [e-mail] Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by T Mobile 5G Home Internet. With new home Internet plus from T Mobile you get Internet right where you want it. With WI Fi Mesh you can boost your connection to places it hasn't reached before, like a boring basement that you can turn into a podcast studio. For a limited time, get a free upgrade to T Mobile Home Internet plus while supplies last. Home Internet plus starts at 50 bucks a month with autopay and any voice line. Check [e-mail] home Internet and get Internet right where you want it. During congestion. Customers on this plan may notice speeds lower than other customers and further reduction if using greater than 1.2 terabytes per month due to data prioritization. After $20 bill credit plus $5 per month without autopay, debit or bank account required. Regulatory fees Included for qualifying accounts, $35 connection charge applies. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Robert Half Robert Half research indicates nine out of 10 hiring managers are having difficulty hiring. If you have open roles, chances are you are feeling this too. That's why you need Robert Half. They're specialized recruiting professionals engage their skills with their award winning AI to connect businesses of all sizes with highly skilled talent in finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative legal and administrative and customer support. At Robert Half they know talent. Visit roberthaff.com today. In the past we have made not one but two two series about the ongoing opioid crisis in the US that crisis had its roots in legal drugs that were prescribed by physicians. As we move ahead with widespread cannabis legalization, some people, like Mount Sinai addiction researcher Yasmin Hurd, may see the opioid crisis as a warning. Be careful when you introduce new drugs into the national bloodstream. But there is another public health crisis that is so widespread, so baked into our culture that we rarely think about it. Here again is Michael Siegel, the public health researcher at Tufts. We heard from earlier.

[John Calkins]

You know the effects of alcohol in our society are overwhelming. At least 100,000 deaths a year are attributable to alcohol. Tremendous amount of violence is related to alcohol, sexual abuse, sexual assault.

[Stephen Dubner]

Have there been studies between populations that drink and don't drink for non health reasons? You know certain religious groups that just don't consume alcohol? I would think that's a pretty nice study cohort.

[John Calkins]

There's no question that when you look at populations that don't drink alcohol that there's a massive decline in morbidity and mortality. The classic studies were done with a group called Seventh Day Adventists who for religious reasons do not drink.

[Stephen Dubner]

One could say there are different characteristics among that population that may not relate to alcohol consumption at all. That may be accounting for the different outcomes.

[John Calkins]

Yes, yeah, absolutely. But if you look at these studies, they've done a lot of work to control for those variables. They're really well done studies. And even controlling for some of those other lifestyle factors, they're still finding an effect. I want to make it clear that in no way am I arguing that we should be prohibiting alcohol use. We tried that. Didn't work.

[Stephen Dubner]

How pervasive would you say has been the problem of the alcohol industry influencing academic research into alcohol?

[John Calkins]

It's been a huge problem. It continues to be a huge problem. The biggest problem is not necessarily that there is research being done that is funded by alcohol companies. The real problem is that researchers who are conflicted because of accepting that funding have either accepted or put themselves into positions where they are making policy recommendations. There are some very specific things that trouble me about what we're not doing about alcohol that I think need to be changed. One is the whole issue of regulation of advertising. I think that we are just completely letting the alcohol companies get away with murder. Essentially. They can do anything they want. They can target youth. They can have very attractive images of alcohol use that appeal to youth. We don't allow that with tobacco. I don't see any reason why we should allow it with alcohol. There are very few organizations that are talking about alcohol as a carcinogen. It is a carcinogen and everyone should know that.

[Stephen Dubner]

When we were talking earlier about industry funding of research for alcohol or tobacco or sugar, et cetera, I'm curious what you can tell us about cannabis. Is that an issue yet?

[John Calkins]

I think cannabis is a little bit different in that the health effects are very different. The issue with cannabis is much more behaviors, for example, driving under the influence of cannabis than long term effects of cannabis use on chronic disease. There is some evidence that cannabis, when smoked, does have lung irritants. But for the most part we're not dealing with the same magnitude of chronic disease as when we're talking about something like tobacco or alcohol.

[Stephen Dubner]

And what if I say, well, that may be the case now based on the known science about alcohol versus cannabis, but there's less known science about cannabis. And until quite recently there's been much, much, much less use of cannabis than alcohol. So maybe we just don't know yet. Alcohol is the devil, you know, at least. What would you say to that argument?

[John Calkins]

I think that there's enough that we do know about cannabis that we can definitively say that it's not going to create the kind of health effects that we see with alcohol. What we don't know is really if there are long term risks of long term use of cannabis. The concerns are more in terms of the way that cannabis use might interfere with someone's life, especially youth, than necessarily that we're going to see hundreds of thousands of people dying from it. I think that's unlikely. I think it's really important for us to understand, for policymakers especially to understand that a regulated market where a product is legal is very often much safer than an unregulated product, potentially if it's not well regulated. Contaminants or toxins getting into these products. And we saw that with THC vaping products where we had this outbreak of lung disease, where I think at least 50 or 60 people died.

[Stephen Dubner]

What's known so far about the addictive nature of cannabis? Because I've read reports all over the map on that.

[John Calkins]

There's no question that cannabis qualifies as an addictive drug. But the major concern with cannabis use is not simply addiction to cannabis, but that cannabis use seems to be associated with experimentation with other drugs as well. And so when somebody is using cannabis, it's not just that they're using cannabis, it's that there's a risk that they may become addicted to other products.

[Stephen Dubner]

That's an argument I remember hearing when I was a teenager. The gateway drug argument. How true does that argument turn out to be? Do we know that habitual users of cannabis are more likely to, quote, move on to other, harder drugs?

[John Calkins]

That is where there is a lot of strong evidence. You know, a lot of people have been saying that vaping is a gateway to smoking. And, you know, what they're doing is basically taking the cannabis model and applying it to vaping without there actually being research. There really is not research showing that vaping is a gateway to smoking.

[Stephen Dubner]

In other words, vaping may be a substitute for smoking instead of.

[John Calkins]

Exactly. There's a lot more evidence that vaping is actually a substitute for smoking. With cannabis, there is evidence that cannabis use can be a gateway to the use of other drugs.

[Stephen Dubner]

What are the other drugs and how likely is the gateway effect?

[John Calkins]

I think the biggest concern is alcohol.

[Stephen Dubner]

Use, the concern about cannabis use is that it leads to more alcohol use. That's the big concern.

[John Calkins]

Yeah. I mean, there's very strong evidence that youth who use cannabis are also more likely to drink more alcohol. Now, what's not clear is, is this a direct causal relationship? In other words, is it the cannabis use that somehow is having effects on the brain that make it more susceptible to addiction, or is it simply that people who are more risk taking if they're experimenting with one substance, they're also more likely to experiment with another substance?

[Stephen Dubner]

So if I were to ask you what seems like a simple question, I'm curious to know how you'd answer it. Is cannabis a substitute or a complement for alcohol in general?

[John Calkins]

All of the evidence that I've seen shows that cannabis is a complement to other drugs. It doesn't appear that people are switching from one form of drug use and then going to cannabis use as a form of harm reduction. So it's very different than vaping, where there's strong evidence that vaping is literally an alternative competing product with tobacco.

[Stephen Dubner]

What about cannabis as a potential replacement for pharmaceutical drugs? Are there examples you can point to where cannabis might be a much better option for some conditions, some people, some situations.

[John Calkins]

It's interesting because there hasn't been a tremendous amount of research in this area by researchers, but there's been a lot of research by the general public in terms of just trying it. A lot of what we know about the usefulness of cannabis for different diseases or ailments or pain comes from people trying it and reporting, hey, this is really working for me, and I can avoid taking opiates or worse things. There are medical uses for cannabis, and there are many situations in which you can reduce harm by allowing people to use cannabis for medical reasons.

[Stephen Dubner]

Okay, so here's my big question, Michael. Alcohol has been around forever. It's widely used in many cultures, in many settings. It's often used responsibly and often gives a lot of people a lot of pleasure, a lot of benefit. But there are, as we've been talking about today, really significant downsides as well, from physiological to the user, him or herself, to the downstream effects like drunk driving and violence, too. Right? So at the moment, it seems like there's this gigantic experiment going on in America with many states legalizing cannabis after many years of it being illegal. And I could envision an argument that it might be a fantastic thing if more people were to switch over to cannabis from alcohol, and even maybe that if they were going to start using something, that it might be better to use cannabis than alcohol, what would you make of that theory?

[John Calkins]

You know, if somebody came up to me today and said, we will make a deal with you. You can replace all alcohol use with cannabis use, would you take it? I would take it in a moment. I would immediately agree to that deal. I think that if everyone who was using alcohol was instead using cannabis, it would be a much safer, healthier world. Now, I'm not suggesting that we should be encouraging everyone to go out and use cannabis.

[Stephen Dubner]

It sounds kind of like you are, Michael.

[John Calkins]

No, I'm saying in this hypothetical situation where someone is offering me a deal, I would take that immediately and then work on trying to reduce cannabis use, because the effects of alcohol in our society are overwhelming. I mean, it just. It's wreaking a havoc on our society.

[Stephen Dubner]

So that's one view of our cannabis replacement theory. We went back to the addiction researcher Yasmin Hurd to ask whether she would prefer that alcohol users were using cannabis instead.

[Yasmin Hurd]

Oh, that's a really challenging question. I always say if we knew then what we know now, neither alcohol nor tobacco would be approved because they contribute to huge health impact in our society, and alcohol leads to more deaths every year. But would I want to get rid of alcohol even though I like my sauvignon blanc? You know, perhaps. But the fact is that we know more about alcohol, we still don't know about cannabis. So it's difficult for me to truly answer that question.

[Stephen Dubner]

How long is it going to take to know what should be known about a substance that's widely legalized and available?

[Yasmin Hurd]

That's an excellent question. And I'm going to be honest and say I don't know. Near daily and daily use of cannabis is much higher than it is for alcohol. That's where our society has gone. So does frequency matter? What we need to know right now are the aspects of the high concentrated products, because that's what is out there in the public. Even these aspects of the pattern of cannabis use that relates to addiction and psychiatric risk, we do not know much about.

[Stephen Dubner]

And Michael Siegel, again, one of the.

[John Calkins]

Philosophies of public health is the theory of harm reduction. We're not going to stop people from using substances completely, so why don't we focus on trying to find ways that will cause the least health harm? I think a combination of legalizing recreational marijuana use, combined with strict regulation and incentives to direct people towards the lesser harm is really the best strategy to go with.

[Stephen Dubner]

So that's what the public health experts have to say that we need to know more that we need a well regulated market with incentives to direct people toward the lesser harm. But, and I certainly mean no offense to Michael Siegel or Yasmin Heard, but it isn't academic public health experts like them who make the markets. In the case of cannabis, we are talking about freewheeling entrepreneurs, government regulators and professional loophole finders. So coming up next time in part two of our series, how does this Market work or not Work? The entirety of the cannabis market is filled with an amazing number of contradictions.

[John Calkins]

Cannabis also has the added difficulty of having a rich history that's rooted in criminalization.

[Stephen Dubner]

Oh, it's been a doozy. That's next time. Until then, take care of yourself. And if you can, someone else do Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. You can find our entire archive on any podcast app [e-mail] where we publish transcripts and show notes. Also, big congratulations to the three winners of this year's Nobel Prize in Economics, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. They have each appeared on Freakonomics Radio in the past. If you search their names on Freakonomics.com, you will find their episodes and you can hear a full interview with Acemoglu on People I mostly admire. That's one of the other podcasts we make, hosted by Steve Levitt. He interviewed Acemoglu not long ago and we are republishing that episode soon. This episode of Freakonomics Radio was produced by Dalvin Abuja and Zach Lipinski, and we had help this week from George Hicks. Our staff also includes Alina Cullman, Augusta Chapman, Eleanor Osborne, Ellen Frankman, Elsa Hernandez, Gabriel Roth, Greg Rippon, Jasmine Klinger, Jeremy Johnston, John Schnarz, Lyric Bowditch, Morgan Levy, Neal Carruth, Rebecca Lee Douglas, Sarah Lilly, and Teo Jacobs. Our theme song is Mr. Fortune by the Hitchhikers. Our composer is Luis Guerra. As always, thank you for listening. I'm very grateful for you being here.

[Yasmin Hurd]

Thank you. Let's see if you have the same opinion at the end of this the.

[Stephen Dubner]

Freakonomics Radio Network the Hidden side of.

[John Calkins]

Everything Stitcher.

[Stephen Dubner]

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