Binge drinking and marijuana use reach historic HIGHS, study suggests

Binge drinking, marijuana use and hallucinogens have reached all-time highs among adults aged 35 to 50 in the US.

Almost a third of people in this age group will report binge drinking — having more than five drinks on one occasion — by 2022, up from 23 percent in 2012, research from the National Institutes of Health revealed.

Marijuana use among 35- to 50-year-olds has also reached historic levels, more than doubling from 13 percent in 2012 to 28 percent last year. The dramatic increase may be due in part to the increasing legalization of the drug in several US states.

And the proportion of adults using hallucinogens, such as LSD, MDMA and magic mushrooms, also doubled over 10 years. While four percent reported using in 2022, less than one percent used these drugs a decade ago.

Rising rates of depression are likely factors driving adults to reach for the bottle, as the expectation that alcohol will alleviate these feelings may increase a person’s desire to drink more. other studies have proposed.

Depression rates are believed to have worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic due to lockdowns, loss of loved ones, and increased isolation and anxiety.

Marijuana use among 35 to 50-year-olds has reached historic levels, more than doubling from 13 percent in 2012 to 28 percent last year

The use of hallucinogens, such as LSD, MDMA and magic mushrooms, has doubled in 10 years to four percent by 2022, from less than one percent a decade ago in people aged 35-50

The poll also looked at alcohol and drug use among 19- to 30-year-olds, more of whom used marijuana than older adults. In 2022, 44 percent of these young adults reported using it, up from 28 percent in 2012.

Hallucinogen use in this group was twice as high as among their older counterparts, with eight percent reporting use of these types of drugs. This is significantly higher than ten years ago, which were recorded at three percent.

However, self-reported binge drinking among 19- to 30-year-olds had dropped to 30.5 percent by 2022, down from 35 percent a decade earlier.

Monitoring the Future, an ongoing research initiative that uses annual studies to track the behavior of American college students into adulthood, suggested that the varying increases over the years are generational.

Megan Patrick, a research professor at the University of Michigan and principal investigator of the study, said: “Trends in drug use evolve over decades and throughout development, from adolescence to adulthood.

“Behavior and public perception of drug use can change rapidly, based on drug availability and other factors.”

For example, among adults aged 35-50, those aged 50 had used marijuana the least, with 68 percent reporting using it at some point in their lives.

The study said, “These respondents graduated from high school in 1990, when marijuana and other drugs were at or near all-time lows over the past four decades, suggesting a cohort effect.”

The cohort effect is the effect that being born in a particular time or region has on the development or perceptions of a group of individuals.

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that drug and alcohol deaths among people over 65 more than tripled in the past two decades, with 17,000 deaths from those causes in 2020 alone.

The number of deaths among women in this age group rose faster than among men.

Alcohol deaths were already rising before Covid-19 – a period when BOTH men and women were known to be drinking amid the isolation and stress of pandemic lockdowns.

Women may have drunk more because of stress, depression and anxiety, as well as loneliness, as many are left behind after the death of a male partner, experts said in a study published in JAMA.

Alcohol also affects women in another way, the study explains.

Women’s bodies generally have less water to dilute alcohol concentrations compared to men, meaning they’re more likely to have health problems from booze.