One In Three Americans ‘Pre-Game’ With Marijuana Before Family Holiday Gatherings, Survey Finds

Holiday marijuana use survey: one in three Americans pre-game with cannabis before family gatherings. Picture the scene—your aunt’s green bean casserole steaming like a humidifier, the TV blasting a rerun bowl game, everyone speaking at once, and you, slipping outside to breathe, to level out, to find a little peace among the pine needles and the cold air. A new nationwide poll says that quiet step into the yard is no secret anymore. More than 1,000 people told researchers that the holiday season is not just eggnog and twinkle lights—it’s a pressure cooker. About half admit to “pre-gaming” before family get-togethers. Alcohol leads at 51 percent. Cannabis, though, isn’t far behind at 31 percent, a solid second place in the cultural toolkit for surviving the season. That’s the headline—and the subtext is even louder: people are choosing weed to decompress, to soften the edges of ritual obligation and old arguments that flicker on like faulty Christmas lights.

The numbers behind the nods

Cannabis pre-game rates spike among younger adults—43 percent of Gen Z and millennials said they partake before family gatherings. Psychedelics show up too, with 12 percent saying they dose before the potluck, try to slip out of the script entirely. Those with a history of substance use report even higher rates: 68 percent with alcohol, 50 percent with cannabis, 26 percent with psychedelics. The money question—literally—matters as well. The survey notes that seasonal financial stress can spark coping behavior, but not uniformly. Many Gen Xers and boomers say they don’t lean on substances to handle holiday budget strain. Millennials do, reporting 54 percent turning to alcohol and 45 percent to cannabis when the bills stack up and the expectations pile higher. The outfit behind the poll puts it plainly: holiday culture masks a thousand triggers, and people are self-medicating to get through it. Their write-up is worth a read for the uncomfortable truth it sits with, and the granular breakdown it offers (Freeman Recovery Center).

Tradition meets policy

There’s a ritual baked into American family lore now—the “cousin walk.” Coats on, chin down, step outside before the turkey hits the table. It’s half inside joke, half sanity check, and it’s leaked from stoner slang into the broader vernacular the way cranberry sauce sneaks into every plate. But the normalization of holiday cannabis use doesn’t erase the tightrope between cultural reality and official rules. In plenty of workplaces—especially the ones with heavy steel and human lives on the line—drug testing still draws a bright line. Washington’s mood music might be changing, but that doesn’t mean the rules that govern airline cockpits, freight yards, or bus depots have softened. For anyone in those chairs, this remains the operative memo: Trump’s Marijuana Order Doesn’t Change Drug Testing For Safety-Sensitive Workers, At Least For Now, Transportation Department Says. The holidays can turn life into a funhouse mirror, but DOT panels don’t blink. That’s the American split-screen—at the kitchen table, attitudes thaw; in the fluorescent corridors of institutional policy, winter holds.

Where the road goes next

Policy is messy because humans are messy, and this moment captures both. Some states are widening the lanes. Others are slapping up new guardrails. Beyond cannabis, you’ve got psychedelics inching out of the underground and into the clinic. Just look at a statehouse headline like New Jersey Bill To Legalize Psilocybin Therapy Clears Another Assembly Committee—not a cousin walk, but a cautious stride toward regulated therapy for conditions that don’t respect holiday calendars. Meanwhile, the cannabis map isn’t all green arrows. Some places are pressing pause or rolling back. Consider the signature-gathering wave up north: Massachusetts Campaign To Scale Back Marijuana Legalization Has Enough Signatures To Advance Toward Ballot, Officials Say. As the country argues over where to draw the lines, the federal scorecard hums in the background. Rescheduling talk is real. But everyone who’s ever tried to buy a plane ticket with store credit knows that labels alone don’t pay the bills. Banking, sentencing reform, and the chiseled block of full legalization sit in the queue, a triad of unfinished business that policy veterans keep calling out: Marijuana Rescheduling Should Be Followed By Banking Access, Sentencing Reform And Legalization, Bipartisan Lawmakers Say. Until those dominoes fall, the “legal cannabis market” remains a patchwork quilt—warm in spots, threadbare in others.

So what does a holiday cannabis pre-game actually mean, beyond the punchline? It suggests that the average American—harried, cash-pinched, emotionally fatigued—has moved past the old whisper network and into a new equilibrium: cannabis as a practical tool. Not a cure-all. Not without risks. But a way to take the temperature down when the room runs hot. That’s the lived reality behind the numbers, and it tracks with broader cannabis consumption trends across the year. As marijuana policy reform stumbles forward, retreats, and tries again, this is the voice underneath the legislative theatrics: people want predictability, access, and common-sense rules that reflect how they actually live. If you choose to partake, know your body, know your limits, know the law in your zip code—and if you’re curious about compliant, federally legal options for a calmer season, take a quiet stroll through our shop.