It’s been 5 months now since the coronavirus outbreak started. Due to the lockdown policy that was implemented worldwide, people had to come up with ideas to keep themselves healthy, safe and entertained indoors.

Needless to say, people had adapted to the change but not everyone dealt with it effortlessly. We’ve conducted a survey that involved 1,000 weed smokers in the U.S. to understand the change in their habit, perception, and behavior.

Here’s what we found out…

Our Respondents

Age of Respondents

According to the data, the largest share of marijuana users in the U.S. is aged between 21-29 years old, taking up 38.5% of the share of survey takers. Followed by people aged 30-39, which represented 35.2% of the share.

Only 16.7% of the survey takers are aged between 40-49. Surprisingly enough, there are only 9.6% of the survey takers aged between 50-59.

Location

Most of our survey takers are from California, which took up 13.8% of the total number of takers.

10.1% of them were from Texas, which is followed by Illinois, representing 8.3% of the survey takers.

Changes In Smoking Frequency

The biggest change can be seen in heavy pot smokers that smoke above 10 times a week. Before quarantine, there were only 16.04% of pot smokers that smoke more than 10 times a week but this increased by 5.26% during quarantine.

Changes In The Amount of Weed Smoked

We also wanted to know just  how many grams of recreational weed do they consume before and during quarantine.

But the highest increase in taking recreational weed before and during the quarantine period lies between taking 6-10 grams per week. It went from 10.3% before quarantine to 16.1% during the quarantine period.

Main Reasons For Smoking Weed During Quarantine

The main reasons why Americans turned to weed during quarantine is due to stress, anxiety, and sleep deprivation.

Specifically, 27.6% of U.S. marijuana consumers smoke weed during quarantine to treat stress/anxiety amidst the coronavirus outbreak. In a similar case, 21.7% of them do so to sleep better.

Only 18% of Americans smoke weed during quarantine to be more productive and have better sex.

What Is Safer To Consume in this Global Pandemic?

Edible is the safest THC product to consume amid Covid-19 – 31.8% of  surveyed Americans admitted.

25.8% of them also think medical marijuana is the safer option during these pandemic times compared to 23.1% that said recreational weed is the safer option to take.

Alcohol seems to be the most dangerous option to consume amid Covid-19,  compared to other THC products

Smoking Weed vs Coronavirus Infection

Surprisingly, 45% of American marijuana smokers don’t care about the coronavirus.

35% of them do believe to some extent that this increases their risk of getting the virus. But they said they’ll continue smoking.

There are only 5% that faithfully believe that this affects them and will quit smoking for a while.

To Weed or Not to Weed?

About 50% of survey Americans would not change their weed smoking habit

11.8% that said they will withdraw from weed smoking and will focus on other things.

The data also shows that 31.8% of them would consume less compared to 6.8% that will consume more after the outbreak.

Nearly half of them would still keep their smoking habit after the lockdown.

Should Recreational Marijuana be Deemed “Essential” During Quarantine?

56.4% of our survey participants agreed compared to the 19% that don’t want recreational marijuana to be deemed essential during quarantine.

24.6% of them just aren’t sure which side they should take.

Methodology and Limitations

We used MTurk to gather survey data with the intent to specifically reach 1,000 marijuana users that live in the United States.

After changing the location setting to U.S., we included a qualifying question “Which is not the slang for weed?” to make sure respondents are all weed smokers. There are four answers, which are:

  1. Mary Jane
  2. 420
  3. Hemp
  4. Pot

Those who chose Hemp were qualified.

Note that the survey heavily relies on self-reporting and that issues such as telescoping and exaggeration can influence such responses. Also, survey results do not reflect the writer’s opinions.

Fair Use Statement

Do you know someone who might benefit from our data? Feel free to share this project with them. The graphics and content are available for non-commercial reuse.

But to give proper credit to all the necessary information and our contributors, we kindly ask that you link back to this page.