Herbicides are a powerful weed control tool for farming operations around the world. A perceived overreliance on herbicides for weed control has sparked much debate on how to best incorporate herbicides into sustainable weed management systems. To have an informed discussion on the future of herbicide use, it is important to understand current and past trends. There is increasing public interest in how herbicide use has changed over time, and whether those changes have positively or negatively affected evolution of herbicide resistant weeds as well as human and environmental health. Risk analysis is complex even when considering only a single active ingredient since multiple endpoints must be considered (applicator health, aquatic organisms, birds, insects, etc.). Risk analysis becomes far more complex when looking at multiple herbicides used across multiple crops. The complexity associated with proper risk analysis is often at odds with a desire to have a simple answer about whether changes are “good” or “bad.