College Students Are Now Officially Smoking More Weed Than Cigarettes

According to a new study, college students are now smoking more weed than cigarettes, AP reports.

While there's no direct evidence to support this hypothesis, I'm guessing this will coincide with large spikes in sales of Doritos and Oreos in the coming years.

The study, conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, found 2014 was the first year in which college students favored the ganja over tobacco.

Researchers found just under 6 percent of the full-time college students surveyed claimed to use pot daily or at least 20 times in 30 days.

Comparatively, 5 percent reported being heavy cigarette smokers. This is reportedly a massive drop from previous figures as 19 percent of college students identified as daily tobacco users in 1999.

The research was conducted as part of an annual report, Monitoring the Future, which has surveyed a nationally representative sample of full-time college students for over three decades.

What this seems to imply is college students have started to recognize the adverse health effects of cigarettes, and now prefer pot.

It's no secret cigarettes are extremely unhealthy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports cigarette smoking leads to the deaths of more than 480,000 Americans per year.

What's more, as NBC News highlights, other research has shown marijuana is safer than both tobacco and alcohol, the latter of which President Obama admitted to The New Yorker not long ago.

It's also impossible to overdose on pot.

Marijuana remains illegal by federal law, but it is now legal in four states and Washington DC, and 23 states and Washington DC have medicinal marijuana programs.

According to Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans now favor legalizing weed nationwide. In this context, it's not surprising more college students are toking up.

It's also possible college students are simply following Redman's logic.

Citations: Study: Pot more a habit for college students than cigarettes (AP), Monitoring The Future (University of Michigan Institute For Social Research), Health Effects Of Cigarette Smoking (CDC), No High Risk: Marijuana May be Less Harmful Than Alcohol, Tobacco (NBC News), Going the Distance (The New Yorker), Here Are All The People Who Have Died From A Marijuana Overdose (Huffington Post), The next 11 states to legalize marijuana (USA Today), Medical marijuana rules vary widely state to state (USA Today), 6 facts about marijuana (Pew Research Center)