This page was last updated on May 20, 2008.
Figure 5.1 is titled "Annual Numbers of New Users of Marijuana: 1965 through 2003." It is a line graph, where the calendar year is shown on the horizontal axis and the number of new users of marijuana is shown in thousands on the vertical axis. There are three lines on the graph corresponding to three age categories: all ages, aged under 18, and aged 18 or older.
In 1965, there were 777,000 new marijuana users of all ages. This increased to a peak of 3.5 million in 1973, and then gradually decreased to 1.5 million in 1990. The number of new users increased to 2.6 million in 1995 and remained fairly stable through 2003, when the number of new marijuana users was 2.5 million.
The number of new marijuana users under the age of 18 in 1965 was 309,000. This increased to 1.9 million in 1974, where the number of new marijuana users stayed fairly stable until it started decreasing again in 1979. In 1990, the number of new marijuana users under the age of 18 decreased to 843,000, but increased again to a peak in 2000 of 1.8 million. The number of new users dropped to 1.7 million in 2003.
The number of new marijuana users aged 18 or older increased from 468,000 in 1965 to its peak at 1.7 million in 1973. There was a fairly steady decline of new adult marijuana users until 1988, when the number was 627,000. The number of new users only moderately increased between then and 2003, when there were 809,000 new users.
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This page was last updated on May 20, 2008. |
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SAMHSA, an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, is the Federal Government's lead agency for improving the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services in the United States.
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