Most cannabis consumers use products daily and prefer smoking, according to a report from data analytics firm New Frontier Data. The report, Cannabis Consumers in America, Part 2: Exploring the Archetypes, details the archetypes, behaviors, preferences and circumstances of use for nine different variations of cannabis users, which it lists as: savvy connoisseurs (13%), contemporary lifestylers (16%), medical lifestylers (12%), modern medicinals (12%), legacy lifestylers (13%), engaged explorers (9%), social nibblers (8%), holistic healers (6%) and infrequent partakers (11%). The outlined archetypes are differentiated by various factors such as frequency of use, age, gender, product preferences, motivation of use among several others.
The report states edible consumption is increasing while variations of smoking cannabis, including using pipes or blunts, is decreasing and speculates that all forms of smoking may decrease across all archetypes due to product innovations such as fast-acting edibles.
Archetypes are compared across a wide range of influencing factors in the report such as reasons for use, preferred product forms, primary source for product, acquisition frequency, among others. For example, one comparison detailed the percentage of archetypes that would regularly spend $100 or more on a purchase: savvy connoisseurs (34%), contemporary lifestylers (24%), medical lifestylers (32%), legacy lifestylers (25%), modern medicinals (29%), engaged explorers (22%), social nibblers (12%), holistic healers (12%) and infrequent partakers (7%); the report also details how many regularly pay $50-$99, under $50 or those that only rely on the kindness of others.
The report goes into in-depth details for each archetype, with representative personality profiles, such as “Meet Glenn: an infrequent partaker.”
New Frontier Data used an online survey of 4,358 respondents from Q1 2023 for the data in the report.