Americans View Using Marijuana As Less Risky During Pregnancy Than Alcohol Or Cigarettes, Poll Finds

On the list of activities that Americans say is dangerous for pregnant women to engage in, using marijuana falls below drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes, according to a new poll.

The YouGov survey comes amid heightened attention to pregnancy-related risks after the Trump administration made a controversial assessment that linked acetaminophen, commonly known by the brand name Tylenol, to increased chances of autism for children.

With respect to other substances, however, 66 percent of respondents said that using marijuana while pregnant poses a “high” health risk. Another 20 percent said there’s a “moderate risk” and 8 percent there’s either a “low” risk or no risk at all.

By contrast, a total of 94 percent of Americans agree that smoking cigarettes is dangerous during pregnancy, including 84 percent who said there was a high risk.

For alcohol, 96 percent said there’s either a high or moderate risk of drinking while pregnant.

The YouGov survey involved interviews with 2,267 U.S. adults, based on two separate 2025 polls from September 22-26 and September 23-25. The margin of error was +/-3 percentage points.

The issue of cannabis use and pregnancy has been routinely debated and studied. Many experts say that marijuana shouldn’t be consumed by pregnant women, though some advocates argue that its relative harms could be outweighed in some cases by benefits in the treatment of major health conditions.

In any case, advocates have pushed back against narratives that legalization adds to the risk of marijuana use during pregnancy, contending that creating regulatory models for cannabis is also a way to promote education that could inform vulnerable populations about potential risks of use.

This past October, two federally funded reports published by the American Medical Association examined issues of cannabis and pregnancy. One study found that cannabis use during early pregnancy was not associated with child autism, while the other found no association with increased risk for early childhood developmental delays.

Late last year, meanwhile, a report from a reproductive rights organization found that pregnancy-related prosecutions were at an all-time high in the wake of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that ended the nationwide right to abortion. By far the most common criminal allegation facing pregnant people was that they used marijuana or other drugs during their pregnancies.

In Oklahoma, local news in 2022 began reporting that prosecutors there were targeting pregnant women for using medical marijuana, resulting in felony child neglect charges being filed against 26 mothers. The crime can carry up to a life prison in Oklahoma.

In 2023, NIDA Director Nora Volkow blasted the criminalization of drug use by pregnant people and new parents, arguing that the resulting stigmatization is harming families and contributing to the overdose crisis.

She said that families need “support, not criminalization.”

Then in July of last year, a state court ruled that people cannot be prosecuted for child neglect for legally using medical marijuana while pregnant.