Prevalence of Cannabis Use in Australia

"In 2013, it was estimated that about 6.6 million (or 35%) people aged 14 or older had used cannabis in their lifetime and about 1.9 million (or 10.2%) had used cannabis in the previous 12 months (Online Table 5.4). Around 1 in 5 (21%) people aged 14 or older had been offered or had the opportunity to use cannabis in the previous 12 months (Online Table 5.12), and 1 in 10 (10.2%) reported that they did use cannabis in that time (Online Table 5.7). About 1 in 20 Australians (5.3%) had used in the month prior to the survey and 3.5% had used in the previous week. More specifically:
"• males were more likely to use cannabis at any frequency, than females (Online Table 5.5)
"• among people aged 14–24, the age at which they first tried cannabis increased from 16.2 to 16.7 between 2010 and 2013 (Online Table 5.10)
"• cannabis users were more likely to try cannabis in their teens and age of first use was younger compared to other illicit drugs (Online Table 5.10)
"• recent cannabis users (median age of 30 in 2013) were generally older than users of ecstasy (age 25), meth/amphetamines (age 28) and hallucinogens (age 24) (Online Table 5.16)
"• one-third (32%) of recent cannabis users used the drug as often as weekly (Online Table 5.11) and older people (50 or older) were more likely than younger people to use cannabis regularly, with at least 4 in 10 recent users in these age groups using it as often as once a week or more (Online Table 5.13)
"• one-fifth (19.8%) of recent cannabis users stated that all or most of their friends currently used cannabis, in contrast to only 0.8% of those who had never used the drug (Online Table 5.14)."