Gone are the days when gangsta rap or psychedelic rock dominated the popular music charts, but a recent study has shown that weed references in Top 40 songs are having a heyday.
The research, published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, analysed the percentage of drug references in Top 40 hits each year between 1986 and 2016.
Weed is on the rise, alcohol has peaked, and opioids are rearing their head: find out which drugs are being mentioned most in Top 40 hits.
Examining the data, the study made a few findings. Firstly that mentions of cannabis had increased significantly since back in 1986, even pushing out alcohol as the most mentioned drug in 2016.
Speaking of alcohol, pop music references of the world’s most popular recreational substance have somewhat levelled out since the early 2000s, with peaks around 2011 and troughs in 2007-2008 and 2013.
Tobacco never really had any time in the sunlight (although it would be interesting to see how much cigarettes were mentioned at peak use in 1965), and opioids have also seen a referential increase, although not as strongly as cannabis.
Check out a graph visualised the data below.
It’s no secret that the western world, also the main consumer of Top 40 music, has been coming around to marijuana in recent times. As legalisation comes to the fore throughout Canada, the US, Europe and god forbid, Australia, we’ll no doubt see this trend increase.
