The results of a Gallup survey released this week reinforce the message from several recent national monitoring instruments that use of marijuana by American adults is surging. From seven percent reporting regular use in 2013, the figure has nearly doubled to 13 percent answering in the affirmative in 2016, complementing a recent federal survey that reported a doubling for the 2001-2013 period.

The American drug-using landscape is changing rapidly, and not for the better. While some of the increased prevalence reported in recent surveys may represent a greater willingness to acknowledge use in an environment of state-level legalization efforts (marijuana use is still, at the federal level, illegal behavior), surely some of the increase, unprecedented over such a short time, represents real behavioral change. Long-held and beneficial American norms against drug use appear to be collapsing.