We will be just fine. Just like cigarette smoking, eventually weed will become unpopular to smoke.
Unfortunately, it does seem like there is a big uptake in users after legalization, which hopefully will subside.
Unfortunately, it does seem like there is a big uptake in users after legalization, which hopefully will subside.
So what happened in the ~2000 era window of time? The internet and social media started exploding in popularity. In fact you'll find that the graph of the decline in teen pregnancy [2] looks roughly similar to the decline in young adult smoking, and probably for the exact same reason.
[1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/509720/cigarette-smoking-rate-s...
[2] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/02/why-is-th...
Technically, of course, vapes aren't cigarettes. But It's a bit misleading to say that smoking is unpopular, when it's just been replaced by a doppelganger. Especially since vapes are also deeply detrimental to health [1].
“Throughout the early to mid-2000s, especially between 2004 and 2007, an increasing number of states enacted a statewide smoking ban of some kind.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_Un...
The things that did the most to drive down use were raising the price of cigarettes (which fund the healthcare costs) and banning smoking indoors, where it affected even non-smoking workers [1]. When we stop subsidizing harmful behavior, we get a lot less of it.
Especially in places that are super-cold.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1155/2012/961724