Who’s Really Buying Cannabis in 2026? (Spoiler: It’s Not Who You Think)
Women are consuming more cannabis than ever, Gen Z is trading alcohol for THC, and seniors are walking into dispensaries with a list of products in hand.
You’ve probably heard versions of that before, and on the surface, it sounds like the story. But most cannabis marketing is still built on those surface-level observations, reducing customers down to age groups, gender, or broad assumptions about behavior. The reality is that this isn’t how people are actually buying cannabis anymore.
Across the dispensary data we work with, a different pattern shows up. It has far less to do with who someone is and far more to do with what they’re trying to solve when they walk in. Once you start looking at behavior instead of demographics, the entire market starts to make more sense.
If your cannabis marketing strategy is still built on outdated personas, you’re not just missing nuance. You’re missing how the category actually works.
Why Women Are Cannabis's Fastest-Growing Market Segment
Women are often framed as an emerging audience in cannabis, but that framing doesn’t quite capture what’s happening. What’s actually taking place is a broader shift in how cannabis is being used, and women just happen to be leading it, which aligns with recent reporting on the rise of women and cannabis.
When you look at dispensary behavior, the change isn’t just in volume. It’s in intent.
What’s Drawing Women to Cannabis?
The way cannabis shows up in people’s lives has changed. It’s no longer centered around novelty or occasional use. Instead, it’s becoming part of everyday routines, filling specific roles that other products used to occupy.
You see it in familiar moments. Someone replaces a nightly drink with a low-dose edible because it feels more controlled. Someone else finds that a small amount of THC helps them unwind in a way nothing else quite does. For others, it becomes a reliable way to get through the night without the side effects of traditional sleep aids.
Those moments start to add up, and over time, they shape purchasing behavior. And once that shift happens, it doesn’t stay isolated to one purchase. It starts to shape how people come back, what they reach for, and how often they rely on it.
- Cannabis becomes a tool for managing stress rather than escaping it
- Low-dose products take the place of sleep aids or alcohol
- Purchases become more consistent because the product is tied to a routine
What looks like demographic growth on the surface is actually a behavioral shift underneath. Women aren’t just buying more cannabis. They’re leading a move toward more intentional, repeatable use.
The Real Money Isn’t Where Most Brands Think It Is
Gen Z gets most of the attention in cannabis. They dominate headlines, drive conversations online, and often become the focus of new product launches. But when you look at what actually happens inside a dispensary, that attention doesn’t always translate into revenue.
What we see across dispensary data is much less obvious at first glance, but far more important over time. The majority of transactions come from customers who already know what works for them. Across the dispensary data we analyze, that pattern shows up consistently, with repeat purchases driving the bulk of transactions. Instead of browsing or experimenting on every visit, they come in with intent, often returning to the same categories and the same products again and again.
You can see it clearly when you look at category behavior over time. Instead of jumping between products, these customers tend to stay within a tight set of products, often returning to the same categories on repeat visits. What looks like a lack of exploration is actually consistency, and that consistency is what drives the bulk of revenue.
That behavior shows up the same way across stores. Once customers find something that works, they don’t keep searching; they settle into it, and you can see that play out clearly in how they buy:
- Purchase histories tend to repeat, with customers gravitating toward familiar products
- The impact of whatever is “new” that week is often smaller than expected compared to the steady volume generated by repeat buyers
This doesn’t look like a trend, and it doesn’t create the kind of excitement most brands chase. But it’s what actually drives revenue. The customers who come back, buy consistently, and trust the experience are the ones building the business underneath all the noise.
When marketing strategies focus only on attention, they miss that foundation. And without that foundation, growth becomes much harder to sustain.
The Real Reasons Gen Z Chooses Cannabis Over Cocktails
It’s easy to summarize the shift as “Gen Z drinks less,” but that explanation doesn’t go far enough. What’s really happening is a change in how people want to feel, and Gen Z simply makes that change more visible.
Rather than rejecting alcohol outright, they’re replacing it with something that fits better into their lives. That broader shift is already showing up in research, with younger consumers increasingly choosing cannabis over alcohol, as highlighted in reporting on cannabis replacing alcohol.
But the difference becomes much clearer when you look at actual purchasing behavior instead of survey responses.
In some markets, vapes are even outselling flower, driven largely by younger consumers. That isn’t just a shift in product preference. It reflects a different expectation of what cannabis should do.
For this group, the experience needs to be controlled, predictable, and easy to fit into a routine. It’s less about intensity and more about manageability, which is why patterns in the data tend to look different. That shift isn’t subtle. It shows up consistently across stores, where variety replaces consistency in a way you don’t see with older customers.
- Strong preference for vapes and pre-rolls
- Willingness to experiment across categories
- Lower consistency from one purchase to the next
That combination is what makes Gen Z both valuable and challenging. They are highly effective at driving trial, but much less reliable when it comes to retention.
If a strategy is built entirely around them, it often ends up prioritizing discovery over consistency, which can make long-term growth harder to maintain.
Plot Twist: Your Grandparents Are Getting High Too
There’s still a tendency to think of older consumers as hesitant when it comes to cannabis, but that assumption doesn’t hold up when you look at what’s actually happening.
Seniors are showing up with clear intent. You can see it clearly in category behavior. As customers get older, their purchases narrow into fewer categories, with flower and edibles making up a larger share of what they come back to. Instead of moving between categories, they narrow in on what works and stay there.
They know what they’re dealing with, whether it’s chronic pain, difficulty sleeping, or general discomfort, and they’re looking for something that helps.
This isn’t a small shift either. Cannabis use among adults 65+ has increased significantly in recent years, as shown in research on rising cannabis use among older adults.
But the motivation is very different from what many brands assume.
They’re not chasing a high. They’re trying to feel better.
Why Seniors Are Embracing Cannabis (and What They Want)
That difference in motivation shapes everything about how older consumers approach cannabis. Instead of browsing or experimenting, they tend to focus on outcomes. Once they find something that works, they stick with it.
You can see that in both product selection and purchasing behavior. Flower and edibles tend to dominate because they feel familiar, predictable, and easy to come back to. Over time, experimentation drops, while repeat purchases increase.
This creates a very different kind of customer profile:
- Lower experimentation once a solution is found
- Higher consistency in product selection
- Strong preference for clarity and reliability
This isn’t a trend-driven audience. It’s a results-driven one.
And that’s where many brands miss the mark. When messaging is built around novelty or complexity, it doesn’t align with what this group actually needs. What they’re looking for is simple: something that works, every time.
How to Market to These Very Different Groups
Once you step back and look at these patterns together, a different picture of cannabis consumers starts to emerge. The differences between groups aren’t just about age or identity. They’re about how people approach the purchase itself.
You’re not marketing to demographics. You’re building a dispensary marketing strategy around how people actually buy.
Some customers are still figuring things out. They move quickly, try new products, and shift between categories without much consistency.
Others are driving volume. They know what works, come back for it, and build habits around specific products.
And then there are customers who drive retention. They prioritize clarity, consistency, and results, and they expect the experience to deliver the same outcome every time.
Those are fundamentally different behaviors, and each one requires a different approach. When brands try to collapse all of them into a single message or campaign, the result is usually underperformance across the board.
What Each Generation Wants from Their Cannabis
At a glance, it’s easy to describe differences in terms of generations. But what the data actually shows is something more useful. These patterns aren’t defined by age, they’re defined by intent. Different groups simply make those patterns easier to see.
| Generation | What They’re Trying to Solve | Products That Match That Behavior |
| Gen Z | Novelty, social appeal, and something to take the edge off | Vapes, pre-rolls, edibles |
| Millennials | Practical wellness, daily support, and alignment with personal values | Edibles, topicals, low-dose flower |
| Women | Relief, routine, and a reliable alcohol substitute | Microdose gummies, CBD blends, tinctures |
| Seniors | Pain reduction, better sleep, and straightforward guidance | Flower, edibles, topicals |
When you step back, the disconnect becomes clear.
Most brands are still organizing their marketing around demographics, but that isn’t what’s driving decisions at the shelf. Customers aren’t choosing products because of who they are. They’re choosing them because of what they need in that moment.
Those needs might look different on the surface, but they all come back to the same idea: the product has a job to do.
And when messaging ignores that, it misses the mark.
Where Cannabis Marketing Is Headed
The shift happening in cannabis marketing isn’t being driven by demographics. It’s being driven by clarity.
As more real purchasing data becomes visible, the reasons behind those decisions are getting harder to ignore. Patterns around sleep, stress, pain, and routine are showing up consistently across different groups, even if they’re expressed in different ways.
And those patterns don’t just show up in high-level trends. They show up in what people actually buy, how often they come back, and how tightly their purchases stay within certain categories over time.
The brands that win in this environment are the ones that pay attention to those patterns and build around them. Instead of chasing audiences, they focus on the problems their customers are trying to solve.
The ones that don’t tend to stay focused on surface-level segmentation, which makes it harder to adapt as behavior continues to shift.
Most cannabis marketing is still built on assumptions.
Your customers already moved on. Most brands just haven’t caught up yet.
We help dispensaries and cannabis brands build strategies around what customers are actually trying to solve.
Ready to rethink your strategy around real cannabis consumers?
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Jen Lamboy
- Jen is Hybrid Marketing Co's VP of Strategy. She entered cannabis through seed genetics and has passionately worked to help grow the industry into a global game-changer ever since. As a strategist focused on business outcomes, Jen has worked in numerous highly-regulated industries with B2B and B2C organizations. She doesn't step lightly; she charges but with a collaborative spirit, intention, intelligence, humility, compassion, and grit.
