A heck of a lot more Americans were toking up in 2012-13 than 10 years before — and not for medical reasons, either — according to a new study. The percentage of American adults who had used marijuana within the last year was 9.5 percent, the study found. That compared to 4.1 percent in 2001-02.

The study — published this week in Jama Psychiatry, a monthly journal published by the American Medical Association — was sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. It was based on in-person interviews with more than 36,000 Americans over the age of 18.

A marked shift in attitudes

With the increase in use has come an increase in the total number of what the study called “marijuana use disorders.”

Pot consumption rises from 4 to 10 percent among adults as attitudes and laws have become more tolerant

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - As attitudes and laws in the U.S. have become more tolerant of marijuana, the proportion of adults using and abusing the substance at least doubled between 2001 and 2013, according to a new study.

Although marijuana dependence and abuse was found to be on the rise, that is largely due to the overall increase in new users, researchers note, while existing marijuana users experienced a 15% decline in pot-related disorders.

PRINCETON, N.J. -- A majority of Americans continue to say marijuana use should be legal in the United States, with 58% holding that view, tying the high point in Gallup's 46-year trend.

This November, Ohio voters will have the opportunity to vote on The Ohio Marijuana Legalization Initiative, Issue 3. If passed, Ohio will be the fifth state, the first in the Midwest, to legalize cannabis for recreational use.

In 1998, Washington state passed I-692, allowing citizens with debilitating conditions to grow medicinal cannabis at home. The actual regulation of medical cannabis was largely left to the local governments until 2010 when the state attempted to regulate MMJ statewide. However, due to a last minute waiver by then-governor Kristine Gregoire, the attempt largely failed. Despite the falter, a set of loose regulations did emerge governing collective gardens and setting designated providers.

With cannabis legal in 23 states and Washington, D.C., rolling a joint or pulling on a bong has become increasingly more socially acceptable as a recreational lifestyle choice. No wonder, then, that more and more women are putting down the booze and picking up the pipe.

In a strongly worded new report out Tuesday, researchers at the Brookings Institution call on the federal government to eliminate roadblocks to medical marijuana research in the United States.

"The federal government is stifling medical research in a rapidly transforming area of public policy that has consequences for public health and public safety," the report, written by John Hudak and Grace Wallack, says. "Statutory, regulatory, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers have paralyzed science and threatened the integrity of research freedom in this area."

Legal marijuana is reportedly the fastest growing industry in the US. According to cannabis research firm The ArcView Group, the legal cannabis market in the US grew 74% in 2014 to $2.7 billion, an increase from $1.5 billion in 2013.

Cannabis advocates have created a monster, and its name is Buddie.

The green cannabis bud with a cool smile, six-pack abs and a cape is for campaigners the walking advertisement for Responsible Ohio, an initiative on the November ballot to legalize pot in the state.

But to many marijuana legalization advocates, Buddie represents an unsettling shift in power, out of the hands of the traditional policy movement and into those of green-eyed newcomers clamoring to be part of a burgeoning profitable industry.