Americans smoking marijuana keep rising: Gallup

Currently 13 percent of adult Americans say they smoke marijuana, up 2 points from 2015 and nearly double the percentage in 2013, Gallup found in a poll released Monday.

More broadly, 43 percent of Americans say they have tried marijuana, similar to the 44 percent last year and up slightly from 38 percent in 2013. In 1969, only 4 percent of Americans said they tried the drug, it found.

About half of adults between the ages of 30 and 64 report having tried the drug; almost one in five adults, or 19 percent, under the age of 30 report currently using it, according to Gallup.

Although marijuana use is still prohibited by federal law, the number of states that have legalized recreational marijuana use has grown from two in 2013, the states of Colorado and Washington, to four today -- with the addition of Alaska and Oregon -- plus Washington, D.C.

The poll comes as the United States is in the middle of a swing leftward, and at a time when millennials tend to lean leftward, changing the demographics of the country in a way not seen in decades.

Half of U.S. states, including the four previously stated, have some sort of a medicinal marijuana law on the books, and four more will be voting this fall on whether to legalize marijuana for medicinal use.

Both major-party presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have voiced support for medicinal marijuana but say they defer to the states in terms of policy making on both recreational and medicinal marijuana use, Gallup noted.

States' willingness to legalize marijuana could be a reason for the uptick in the percentage of Americans who say they smoke marijuana, regardless of whether it is legal in their particular state.

Residents in the West of the U.S. -- home of all four states that have legalized recreational marijuana use -- are significantly more likely to say they smoke marijuana than those in other parts of the country, Gallup found. Endit