Smoking Like a Mother
Women are the fastest growing market in the cannabis industry
By Harriet Alida Lye for Berners Bowie Lee
The stereotype of a cannabis user — a stoner, a pothead — is epitomized in movies like Pineapple Express and Cheech and Chong. The demographic we typically picture is predominantly male and loaded with stigma, but a large part of the history of cannabis, as well as the future, is female.
Historically, cannabis has been used to treat a huge range of pains that afflict those with wombs. In an article for Leafly, Colleen Fisher Tully writes: “like the rest of the human body, a uterus is carpeted with endocannabinoid receptors, making cannabis a solid option for all that ails it. And for millenia, right up until 20th century prohibition, that’s just what people did.”
A passage in the ancient Egyptian medical text, Ebers Papyrus, which dates back to at least 1500 BCE, describes cannabis as a successful treatment for the pains of active labour. Ethnobotanist Dr. Ethan Russo cites a 9th century text from ancient Persia, the Al-Aqrabadhin Al-Saghir, that prescribes cannabis to “calm uterine pains, prevent miscarriage, and preserve fetuses in their mothers’ abdomens.” Queen Victoria was known to have debilitatingly painful periods and her personal physician, Sir John Russell Reynolds, prepared her tinctures to treat the pain. The British began using cannabis after their colonization of India, where the plant was used widely, and after Sir Reynolds had been working with the plant for 30 years he declared that “Indian hemp… is of great service in cases of simple spasmodic dysmennorhoea,” or, in other words, “cannabis helps bad cramps.”
Since legalization, cannabis in all its forms has come back into favour as a non-prescription treatment for period pains, but it is strongly discouraged during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
The wellness aspect to cannabis was well-known centuries ago, this unique aspect resonates with many women again today. Even Gwyneth Paltrow, mega-queen of the wellness empire called Goop, has been open about her use of cannabis: she recently partnered with MedMen, the largest American company in the weed industry, to create her own strain to sell. For women interested in trying cannabis, 90% claimed the desire was medicinal, by which they meant pain relief, relaxation, stress relief, and anxiety reduction. Ann Friedman, American writer and co-creator of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast, wrote in The Gentlewoman that “the popular appeal of edibles makes sense when you consider that legal weed markets tend to coincide with places where consumers are obsessed with wellness and sceptical of pharmaceuticals… Why pop a painkiller to relieve a headache when you can massage some CBD balm on your temples?” She also makes the good point that the new class of edibles and oils that have come to post-legalization locations have an Instagram-friendly aesthetic that appeals to newcomers to the market, notably women between the ages of 25 and 44, and are sold through websites with minimal design and cheeky copy-writing.
In 2010, a pro-marijuana reform organization called the NORML Women’s Alliance promoted the term “stiletto stoner,” hoping to change the stereotype of cannabis users as being decidedly male. Marie Claire magazine reported in 2009 that “According to a recent study by The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an estimated 8 million American women smoked up in the past year — a lowball figure that reflects only those willing to cop to it. Among them is the upper-middle-class Pottery Barn set: One in five women who admitted to indulging in the previous month lives in a household earning more than $75,000 a year.” Broccoli is a magazine created for and by women who love cannabis that is definitely parallel to the mainstream. Even Vogue praised it: “With increased openness comes more visibility for brands that embrace what was always true: Women — high-achieving, creative, social women — are into weed.”
New mothers are also expected to be a huge growth market for cannabis, especially for edibles and oils: smoking pot carries many of the same risks as smoking cigarettes, drinking large amounts of alcohol while breastfeeding is not advised, but women still want to shift into a relaxing “evening mode” without risking a hangover on little sleep. Since edibles and oils have been legalized and regulated, consumers know exactly what dosage is involved and can control their experience to a much more specific degree than with the hash-brownies of yore. A 2018 study asked mothers of all ages what they felt about cannabis: 38% feel that using cannabis makes them more patient and playful parents to their children, and 89% are talking to their kids about it.
The financial implications for this shift are huge. Bloomberg reported that Canada’s cannabis sector contributed $8.26 billion to the country’s GDP as of July 2019 and the industry grew by 185% in the first 10 months after recreational marijuana was legalized. The Cannabis Consumers Coalition (CCC) reported that women have now surpassed men for cannabis consumption, with 53% having tried it compared to just 42% of men. The younger generations make up a vastly larger share of the overall market, and each year more of them become of legal age.
The Harvard Business Review reported in 2009 that, worldwide, women control around $30 trillion in annual spending, and yet, many companies often ignore this powerful demographic. Millennial women in particular tend to have an above-average household income, and are estimated to represent a $170 billion dollar market. The Global Wellness Institute said in 2018 that the global wellness market was worth $4.2 trillion and continues to grow steadily, and women control about 85% of it.
Yet when Van Der Pop conducted a survey among North American women in 2018 to see what they thought and felt about cannabis, the results were fascinating. 70% of respondents said they still believed there was a negative stigma associated with cannabis users — the hippie, the stoner, the pothead. Because of the stigma they feel, 66% of women reported that they hide their cannabis usage.
So, women have money, they are into weed, and yet the industry continues to grow in ways that don’t encompass their diversity. If brands or industries are to resonate with women (who, let me remind you, make up more than half the population, have huge spending power, and varied interests, lifestyles, and passions) they need to understand and keep up with behaviours, beliefs, and interests. Marketing to women is only part of the answer. The cannabis industry needs to shift the male-orientated culture around cannabis, ending the stigma around its consumption that no longer reflects or serves the current reality.
For cannabis growers and the associated emerging industry, this engaged and wealthy female market offers an unparalleled opportunity. The question is, will the industry take it?
