Advertisers Are Watching: What Kind of Marijuana User Are You?

 The cannabis industry is trying to figure out who you are. More specifically, the companies that make up this multibillion-dollar business sector want to get inside the heads of the consumer so they can squeeze as much money from us as possible in the coming years. But there’s no need to get all paranoid over this — certainly no reason to start crafting tin foil hats and using a burner phone. It’s not like the industry has teamed up with some super-secret government agency and in a ploy to use modern-day spy technology to study your cannabis consumption habits. At least, we don’t think so. Jokes aside, now that marijuana is fully legal in a handful of states across the nation, companies that sell weed are eager for any and all information about their customers. They want to know how much money we earn every year, the kinds of cars we drive, whether we have 2.5 kids and a house with a white picket fence or whether we’re slumming it in the welfare district of our neighborhood gutters. All of these details are invaluable to those who sell pot. A report published last year by New Frontier Data and MJ Freeway suggests there are nine kinds of cannabis users presently on the scene. All of them have different product preferences, quirks, income levels and purchasing habits. Find out exactly where you fit in on the list. 1. Novelty Tokers These are the occasional smokers, the people who will purchase bud a couple of times a year with a group of friends and get into open discussions on wildly entertaining topics like, “What if we had an orgy?” These are not the stark-raving mad, ride or die cannabis advocates who fought for legal weed over the past several decades. These people likely have no idea how grass even became legal in their neck of the woods — and they don’t care, either! But they are all about getting stoned from time-to-time and laughing it up with their besties. Interestingly, this group makes up the most significant chunk (17 percent) of cannabis consumers. You might see a bunch of these folks later this year when the Weedmaps Museum opens up! 2. Grey and Trying to Forget This classification is representative of the “occasional indulgers” who will purchase cannabis “a couple times a month or less to relax.” Research shows that they are mostly men of a certain age who are divorced, broke and live alone. This group, which ranks second on the list of top spenders (14 percent), is apparently still skeptical about making their pot purchases at their neighborhood dispensary. They still have a tendency to rely on friends and weed dealers for their buys. They may also play with toy trains. 3. Weed Is Everything Members of this group are more likely to be hardcore cannabis advocates. This slightly younger demographic has a tendency to use marijuana daily, even though they’re broke as well. Research shows that these people have a relatively low income, yet still throw a large portion of