San Francisco is one of three major cities in the U.S. that loves pot more than nicotine

Survey: San Franciscans love pop more than nicotine

All jokes aside about the Salesforce Tower or the Space Needle looking like big fat spliffs, it seems San Francisco, along with Seattle and Portland, really enjoy cannabis. According to a survey by the market-research gurus at Nielsen, people in these three liberal and marijuana-friendly cities are smoking more pot than cigarettes.

According to a report in the Seattle Times, Nielsen surveyed more than 200,000 adults across the country between January 2018 and May 2019 about their cannabis use, though they did not ask if the product had been obtained legally or on the black market. Seattle, for example, was just one of three cities that showed that cannabis bias, not just because there are more pot smokers in these places but they also tend to have fewer nicotine users than other metropolitan regions around the country.

Nielsen did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

The survey shows that in San Francisco, an epicenter in a state that’s been at the vanguard of the marijuana-legalization movement since medical cannabis was first approved in 1996, is carrying on that legacy in 2019. (Washington and Colorado led the way with legal recreational cannabis in 2012.)

Results from another survey published last month in the JAMA Psychiatry journal suggests that marijuana legalization boosts overall cannabis use, and possibly even addiction, particularly among adults 26 and older. Vox reported at the time that the survey highlights “a public health downside to a policy change that now 11 states and Washington, DC, have adopted and several others are considering.”

“The consequences could be serious,” says the report. ” As Magdalena Cerdá, the study’s lead author, and her coauthors wrote in JAMA Psychiatry, “Although occasional marijuana use is not associated with substantial problems, long-term, heavy use is linked to psychological and physical health concerns, lower educational attainment, decline in social class, unemployment, and motor vehicle crashes.”

According to the Nielsen report, here’s a breakdown of the percentage of the population 18 years and older in each of the those cities who have reported using cannabis vs. tobacco in the past 30 days:

San Francisco: 16 percent compared with 13 percent

Seattle: 17 percent compared with 16 percent

Portland: 20 percent compared with 19 percent

In 2012, Washington and Colorado became the first to legalize recreational use. Nine more states (plus the District of Columbia) have since since legalized recreational use: Alaska, California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Vermont. Another 22 states have legalized cannabis for medical use only. Polling shows a clear majority of Americans support legal marijuana.

Yet even as states, either with or without legalized pot, grapple with the issue, one question looms large: how safe is marijuana smoking? The answer so far is elusive, says the American Lung Association, which is encouraging continued research into the effects of pop smoking on lung health. And the ALA say it’s important to consider other health concerns that are tied to marijuana use, including neurological and cognitive effects.

“Smoke is harmful to lung health,” says the group. “Whether from burning wood, tobacco or marijuana, toxins and carcinogens are released from the combustion of materials. Smoke from marijuana combustion has been shown to contain many of the same toxins, irritants and carcinogens as tobacco smoke. Beyond just what’s in the smoke alone, marijuana is typically smoked differently than tobacco. Marijuana smokers tend to inhale more deeply and hold their breath longer than cigarette smokers, which leads to a greater exposure per breath to tar.”

One thing is clear, says the ALA: “Smoking marijuana clearly damages the human lung. Research shows that smoking marijuana causes chronic bronchitis and marijuana smoke has been shown to injure the cell linings of the large airways, which could explain why smoking marijuana leads to symptoms such as chronic cough, phlegm production, wheeze and acute bronchitis.”

Here are some other notable details culled from the Times’ story on the Nielsen report:

• The Albuquerque-Santa Fe area has the highest share of cannabis users for a metro area where state law prohibits recreational use;
• At 14 percent of the adult population, the area comes out 8th among the 70 metro areas surveyed;
• And Albuquerque-Santa Fe’s cannabis use is even higher than some other cities where recreational use is perfectly legal, including Spokane which weighed in at 12 percent;
• In Seattle, more than 700,000 people, or 17 per cent of the adult population in the Seattle-Tacoma area, said they had used some form of cannabis in the last month;
• When measured by just consumption numbers, Seattle ranks fourth overall in cannabis use in the country, behind Portland, Las Vegas and Denver;
• The typical cannabis user in Seattle had a higher median income (US$78,000) than e-cigarette users (US$67,000) and regular tobacco smokers (US$59,000);
• Cannabis users in the Emerald City tend to be younger than cigarette smokers, 40 years compared to 44;
• They are also more likely to be college graduates than either cigarette smokers or e-cigarette users;
• E-cigarette users  were the youngest group surveyed, with a median age of 31;
• In the end, Seattle residents’ use of cannabis and tobacco pales when compared with the amount of alcohol they consumer: the study shows that nearly half of adults, or 48 percent, had consumed some type of booze in the past week.