Marijuana Policy Project

Do you know how many of your friends have smoked pot? Have you ever wondered how many Luther students smoke pot?

We asked around in classes to get students to tell us what they thought the percentage of students at Luther College who had smoked pot was. Most students gave figures between 20 and 30 percent, but some students named other numbers, ranging between five percent and 60 percent.

Twenty-six percent* of students at Luther say that they have ever smoked pot. That's one in four people. Where did these numbers come from?

This is Lutherology, the comprehensive sociological study of the Luther community and students, guaranteed to provide interesting facts and possible explanations about the student body in every single column.

Of that 26 percent, 10 percent say that they no longer use, which means 16 percent of Luther students are current marijuana users. Only 1 percent of Luther students smoke pot "regularly."

What about the rest of the country? A 2005 national study by the University of Michigan found that 45 percent of U.S. high school seniors have ever used marijuana. This indicates that students who come to Luther have significantly lower rates of having used marijuana. Thirty percent of college students nationwide have tried pot in the last year, according to a 2005 survey done by the Core Institute.

While our survey didn't ask about annual usage, it's estimated that approximately 20 percent of Luther students have used marijuana within the last year — 10 percentage points lower than the national average. According to the 2005 National Survey on Drug use and Health, 40 percent of people over 12 years old have tried marijuana in their lifetime — that's two in five Americans.

Of the 26 percent at Luther, do men or women smoke more?

Our study found that one-third of men (34 percent) and one-fifth of women (21 percent) have ever used marijuana (which was statistically significant at the .05 level). National data also finds higher marijuana use for males. The 2004 data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) found that 32 percent of men and 24 percent of women ages 18-25 have smoked pot in the last year.

We also asked what class (year) at Luther smokes more, and what type of area students think would produce more people who smoke pot. The people polled were torn between naming first-years and juniors as the top tokers, saying that first-years are more likely because they are coming in with these habits and their own stash, and that juniors were enjoying their freedom before the final crackdown to graduate. According to our survey, 11 percent of first-years had ever used marijuana as compared to 33 percent of sophomores and juniors and 28 percent of seniors.

Are farm kids more likely to smoke pot than suburbanites? Our study found that students who come from very small towns and rural areas have the lowest rate of marijuana use, 11 percent, while suburbanites have the highest rate, 36 percent. Those from large urban areas and mid-size or small towns had rates around 25 percent.

Stay tuned for more Lutherology.

* Based on statistical probabilities, we are 95 percent sure that between 20 percent and 32 percent of 2006 Luther students have ever smoked pot.