This report from Marijuana Moment, published 27 May 2025.

Among male cannabis consumers age 21 and older, 19.8 percent said their most common mode of consumption was smoking, compared to 14.3 percent of female users. That’s according to an assessment of nationwide responses to the 2022 and 2023 editions of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Female consumers, meanwhile, were significantly more likely than males to report using topicals—including lotion, cream and transdermal patches—with 2.5 percent of females reporting them as their preferred mode of use, compared to 1.2 percent of male respondents. They are also more likely to consume cannabis-infused edibles and beverages.

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“Among people who used marijuana in the past year,” the new report says, “males were more likely than females to smoke marijuana in every age group except for adolescents aged 12 to 17, whereas females were more likely than males to eat or drink marijuana.”

Other methods comparatively popular among female users were oral drops, lozenges or sprays, while male consumers more frequently reported inhaled methods, such as vaping or dabbing cannabis concentrates.

Other findings from the survey analysis—published this month by the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)—include that consumers most commonly used a single method of consumption, with 44.9 percent of respondents providing that answer. About a quarter of users (27.5 percent) said they used two methods, while another quarter (27.6) said they used three or more methods.

Sticking to a single mode of consumption was more common among older marijuana users, while younger ones were generally more likely to use two methods or more.

Younger users were also more likely to smoke marijuana, the survey found.

“Regardless of sex, young adults aged 18 to 25 who used marijuana in the past year were more likely to smoke marijuana compared with people in other age groups who used marijuana,” says the new report. “Use of marijuana via three or more modes also was more likely among male and female young adults who used marijuana in the past year compared with their counterparts in other age groups.”

A separate report published earlier this year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) similarly found that while smoking marijuana remains the most common way to consume it, methods such as eating, vaping and dabbing are growing in popularity.

That report looked at data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, an annual nationwide telephone survey of people 18 and older. Specifically, it unpacks responses from a “optional marijuana module” that was included in the 2022 survey.

Notably, the use of that module was the first time since 2016 that the survey allowed for the selection of multiple methods of use. From 2017 through 2021, marijuana modules permitted only a single method of use.

Comparing 2022 results to those in 2016 reveals that “the prevalences of eating and vaping marijuana were each higher in 2022,” authors wrote, “as was the prevalence of reporting multiple routes of use.”

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