Men Are More Likely Than Women To Smoke Marijuana, While Females Prefer Cannabis Edibles, Drinks And Lotions, Federal Study Shows

A new report from a federal agency examines the various modes of marijuana consumption preferred by Americans, finding that while smoking remains the most common method overall, it’s also far more popular among male consumers than female ones. Meanwhile, women are more likely to consume cannabis edibles, beverages and topicals than men are.

Among male cannabis consumers age 12 and older, 19.8 percent said their most common mode of consumption was smoking, compared to 14.3 percent of female users. That’s according to an assessment of nationwide responses to the 2022 and 2023 editions of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Female consumers, meanwhile, were significantly more likely than males to report using topicals—including lotion, cream and transdermal patches—with 2.5 percent of females reporting them as their preferred mode of use, compared to 1.2 percent of male respondents. They are also more likely to consume cannabis-infused edibles and beverages.

“Among people who used marijuana in the past year,” the new report says, “males were more likely than females to smoke marijuana in every age group except for adolescents aged 12 to 17, whereas females were more likely than males to eat or drink marijuana.”

Other methods comparatively popular among female users were oral drops, lozenges or sprays, while male consumers more frequently reported inhaled methods, such as vaping or dabbing cannabis concentrates.

Other findings from the survey analysis—published this month by the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)—include that consumers most commonly used a single method of consumption, with 44.9 percent of respondents providing that answer. About a quarter of users (27.5 percent) said they used two methods, while another quarter (27.6) said they used three or more methods.

Sticking to a single mode of consumption was more common among older marijuana users, while younger ones were generally more likely to use two methods or more.

Younger users were also more likely to smoke marijuana, the survey found.

“Regardless of sex, young adults aged 18 to 25 who used marijuana in the past year were more likely to smoke marijuana compared with people in other age groups who used marijuana,” says the new report. “Use of marijuana via three or more modes also was more likely among male and female young adults who used marijuana in the past year compared with their counterparts in other age groups.”

A separate report published earlier this year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) similarly found that while smoking marijuana remains the most common way to consume it, methods such as eating, vaping and dabbing are growing in popularity.

That report looked at data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, an annual nationwide telephone survey of people 18 and older. Specifically, it unpacks responses from a “optional marijuana module” that was included in the 2022 survey.

Notably, the use of that module was the first time since 2016 that the survey allowed for the selection of multiple methods of use. From 2017 through 2021, marijuana modules permitted only a single method of use.

Comparing 2022 results to those in 2016 reveals that “the prevalences of eating and vaping marijuana were each higher in 2022,” authors wrote, “as was the prevalence of reporting multiple routes of use.”

Another analysis from CDC found that rates of current and lifetime cannabis use among high school students have continued to drop amid the legalization movement.

A separate, earlier report from SAMHSA found that consumption among minors—defined as people 12 to 20 years of age—had fallen slightly in the past year. Despite methodological changes that make comparisons over time difficult, it ultimately suggested that youth use has fallen significantly in the past decade.

A separate poll recently found that that more Americans smoke marijuana on a daily basis than drink alcohol every day—and that alcohol drinkers are more likely to say they would benefit from limiting their use than cannabis consumers are.

U.S. adults who drink alcohol are nearly three times as likely to say they’d be better off reducing their intake of the drug compared to marijuana consumers who said they’d benefit from using their preferred substance less often, the survey found. Further, it found that while lifetime and monthly alcohol drinking among adults was far more common than cannabis use, daily marijuana consumption was slightly more popular than daily drinking.

An earlier report published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs that found that secondhand harm caused by marijuana use is far less prevalent than that of alcohol, with respondents reporting secondhand harm from drinking at nearly six times the rate they did for cannabis.

Yet another 2022 study from Michigan State University researchers, published in the journal PLOS One, found that “cannabis retail sales might be followed by the increased occurrence of cannabis onsets for older adults” in legal states, “but not for underage persons who cannot buy cannabis products in a retail outlet.”

The trends were observed despite adult use of marijuana and certain psychedelics reaching “historic highs” in 2022, according to separate data.

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