As cannabis becomes legalized in more states across the United States, more people are beginning to experiment with cannabis using various forms of consumption. To analyze consumption behaviors in users, New Frontier Data has released its latest report to share insights in how the growing market has led to changes in how people are bringing cannabis into their lives.
Cannabis Consumers in America: Dynamics Shaping Normalization in 2022 combines the survey results from over 20,000 consumers since 2018 to benchmark and analyze social attitudes around cannabis use. The report showed that while the main reasons for consuming cannabis haven’t changed, the increasing ways of consuming cannabis have allowed for newer ways to integrate cannabis into lifestyles. Finding showed 57 percent of cannabis consumers use both flower and non-flower cannabis products, one-quarter of users stick to only flower while 17 percent use exclusively non-flower products.
Overall, flower was the leading form of cannabis product consumed, with 83 percent of consumers using flower products by consumers who said they consumed cannabis at least once a year. Edibles came in second with 56 percent of consumers, and beverages were used by 14 percent of cannabis consumers, with nearly all beverage consumers saying they also used solid edibles as well.
Edibles and beverage products tend to be used more by new cannabis users as the products provide a sense of familiarity for users. New users might get nervous when seeing joints or flower but a cookie or a lemonade might be easier to consume.
Cannabis edibles company Azuca released a survey examining the consumption habits of consumers and found in a survey of 1,089 people with over half reporting as cannabis consumers, over half of cannabis consumers used edibles over smoking or vaping cannabis. The report found over half of the respondents prefer to consume cannabis with a gummy, 39 percent prefer smoking, 30 percent prefer chocolate or any type of food, roughly 22 percent say they prefer a vaporizer, 17 percent prefer beverages and 13 percent prefer using topicals.
One-third of respondents used vapes and 22 percent of consumers said they had used concentrates while another 19 percent said they consume cannabis using tinctures, topicals, capsules, or sublinguals.
Cannabis users are also increasingly aware of the different effects of different cannabis products and choose based on what they intend to do. Among cannabis consumers who use more than one method of consumption, 46 percent said their chosen activity is the leading factor in deciding which cannabis product to use. Mood (38 percent) and time of day (27 percent) followed as the next highest factors in deciding which product to use.
Cannabis use overall has been increasing throughout the country as widespread legalization also helps reduce the stigma surrounding cannabis use. An online survey by YouGov in partnership with creative services agency Receptor Brands and marketing and branding company Sister Merci of nearly 2,800 American adults found 19 percent of adults said they use cannabis at least three times a week, which the questionnaire’s designers described as “heavy” based on comparable metrics for alcohol use.
“60% of them don’t think of themselves as ‘stoners.’ These consumers indicate they’re using cannabis weekly or daily for its functional benefits, such as relaxation or sleep, and many of them—especially parents of young children—stepped up their consumption within the past year,” said Allison Disney, partner at Receptor Brands.
The survey also examined the product preferences and purchase habits of adults and found more than half of the heavy users saying they preferred cannabis flower and 39 percent more inclined to consume cannabis edibles. Over one-quarter of heavy users said they often or usually mixed consumption methods, such as eating an edible and smoking a joint.
