EAZE INSIGHTS | People are opening up about cannabis this 4/20

Californians are owning it. Legalization is the reason.

This 4/20 is going to the biggest, boldest—and highest-trending—in history.

Almost half of nearly 5,000 respondents to an Eaze Insights survey say they plan to openly celebrate 4/20 this year by posting on social media, the beginning of a wave of openness about cannabis already under way in 2018. One in eight said they’d be marking 4/20 for the first time, and 73% of those said legal adult-use is the reason.

| SEE ALSO: The 2017 State of Cannabis report by Eaze Insights |

Of all respondents, 52% said legalization has made it easier to talk openly about marijuana, period. And 80% said they planned to celebrate 4/20 in some way.

Here’s what else the data shows from 4,852 Eaze customers in California surveyed March 27-28:

Women are braver.

It’s not true of every situation, but it is a trend across multiple queries, including, “Are you open about your cannabis use?” Ninety-six percent of women answered “yes, with most people” or “it depends on the person,” while men were at 95%.

The gap widens a bit, however, when it comes to social media: 44% of women said they are open about cannabis on social media, compared with 38% of men.

And women are nearly twice as likely to be open with their children (61% vs 37%)—something we’ll get into more in a bit.

There’s one big reason people keep it private.

The going concern is still that employers and future employers might know—60% cited “career concerns” as their reason for staying discreet, more than any other reason. But stigma among those closest to us is far less of an issue; “family concerns” ran only 34%.

Perhaps even more telling about low-key types: 57% said “it’s just not important to share.”

And young adults are generally more likely to be open about cannabis than older consumers. Notice that Gen X—likely more established in their careers and more comfortable about openness—beat out Millenials in this case:

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We’re open with family. Mostly.

Eaze customers’ parents are the most in-the-know family members—73% say they’re open with mom and dad.

We’re more open with grandma and grandpa than you might think, too, at 44%.

With children, things get a little more nuanced. Though 47% say they’re up-front with the kids, there’s a wider spectrum with respect to their age, which is to be expected. Parents of adult children were 84% open with them, compared with parents of teens (61%) and parents of children under 12 years (40%).

 

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We’re less open with co-workers and bosses.

Tying back to the “career concerns” theme is people’s willingness to talk openly about cannabis with co-workers and bosses.

Bosses, in particular, earned the lowest openness rate among every type of person we asked about, with 39% of respondents saying they’d willingly share that information with their supervisor. Still, this is not your mother and father’s workplace—that’s a lot of in-the-know bosses!

Work is one of those places where men overtake women, in terms of openness.

Men share more about their cannabis consumption with co-workers (67% vs 62%), and are significantly more open with the boss (41% vs 34%)—though this statistic probably says as much about the workplace as it does about cannabis.

 

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Cannabis helps. And that helps us open up.

Of all our respondents, 95% said they have a friend or family member has benefited from medical marijuana. And there’s a strong correlation between that and being more likely to open up about cannabis use: Having a loved one’s life improved by cannabis significantly impacts openness about personal consumption (96% vs. 86%).

Legalization, more sharing, less stigma. The snowball is rolling, and Eaze users are telling us that the tide is turning on perceptions about cannabis.

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Click here to view more details and analysis of this Eaze Insights data by Eaze Senior Manager of Policy Research Peter Gigante.