Why Won't Generation Z Hit My Joint?

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Dear Stoner: I (a 36-year-old male) just hosted my 23-year-old niece for a week. We both like cannabis, but it was interesting to see how she hated smoking but loved vaping herb, dabbing, pens, all of it. But no smoking, not even joints.
Hanks

Dear Hanks: This looks like a generational divide between millennials and Generation Z. Smoking and drinking get less popular with successive generations, and Z'ers are walking away from both...so far. (Let's see how they handle life after college.) According to 2023 data from the CDC, 85 percent of teenage nicotine users vape instead of smoke, while the most recent state survey in Colorado showed that 18- to 24-year-olds who regularly vape increased from 15 percent in 2020 to almost 25 percent in 2022.

click to enlarge

Jacqueline Collins

Most U.S. data is connected to nicotine, not cannabis, but national surveys in Canada have shown that younger generations prefer vaping and dabbing concentrates over smoking, and dispensary sales tracker Headset predicts "continued growth in the future" for vape pens "as a younger generation of consumers ages into the market." All of this is to say that your niece thinks smoking is gross and bad — which isn't necessarily wrong, so consider her dry herb vape next time — but it's not like vape pens are healthy, either. Different tokes for different folks, I suppose.

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