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Survey says: Absolutely not!

The journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence recently published new research that purports to have determined at long last how much marijuana the average joint contains. Whereas previous studies had utilized surveys of varying degrees of rigor, the new research took data gleaned from arrests and applied a mathematical model designed to account for price variations introduced by geography and bulk versus “retail” purchasing to reveal that the “average” joint in the United States contains 0.32 grams of marijuana. The New York Times quotes one of the study authors, Greg Ridgeway, as stressing the importance of determining an accurate estimate of marijuana in a joint in order to “produce better understanding about illicit marijuana markets, the size of potential legalized marijuana markets, and health and behavior outcomes.”

However, leaving aside whether or not this new methodology in fact provides for an estimate any more realistic than previous studies, joints are not the only method of consumption of marijuana, nor are they necessarily the most common for everyday smokers. This research stirred my longstanding aggravation with the focus on joints as the presumed primary method of marijuana consumption by both policymakers and the media. In an attempt to channel this aggravation into something more useful that shaking my fist at an unblinking computer monitor, I crafted a survey to help get a better idea of how often people smoke joints in order to determine whether “number of joints smoked” is a reasonable measure of consumption. Seeking a broad audience of regular marijuana users I posted the survey to /r/trees on reddit – a good move all told considering I received over 2200 responses from 53 countries.

Before proceeding to the results I must stress the very important caveat that this (extremely) unscientific survey did not provide for randomization of the cohort or any other controls. Additionally, soliciting responses from /r/trees likely skewed the results in favor of recreational (versus medical) use, and contemporary (versus past) use. In this preliminary analysis I also have not performed sub-analyses based on age, geographic location, or any other factors.

Those caveats being duly noted, the resulting data nevertheless strongly suggests that joints are not a representative way of measuring marijuana consumption, either for making policy decisions or for reporting levels of usage in the media, due to the simple fact that joints are not the most prevalent way that people currently consume marijuana.

The survey respondents were overwhelmingly categorized as “regular” users of marijuana (with 54 percent reporting daily use, 30 percent weekly use, and 8 percent at least once per month). These are therefore the exact type of users that are most relevant when considering the implications of policies surrounding marijuana consumption.

Yet it is clear that the vast majority of these regular marijuana users do not utilize joints as their primary method of consumption. Bongs won out for both primary and preferred method of consumption, while bowls came in second for primary method. Joints obtained a meager 16 percent of the cohort’s support as the primary mechanism of consumption (a few points behind vaporizers), rising only one percentage point in the preferred category.

The concept of using joints as a measure for consumption is not wholly without merit – comments solicited on the survey and posted in the /r/trees thread noted that younger users often employ joints where marijuana remains illegal because of the convenience of being able to ditch them without having to retain any incriminating (and often valuable) paraphernalia. Furthermore, certain geographic regions or demographic classifications may exhibit a cultural preference for joints, and in some cases they may simply be the most convenient way to sell marijuana illicitly. Christopher Ingraham from the Washington Post discusses some of these factors in his article about the joint size study. Moreover, joints did come in second place for preferred method of consumption, indicating that for many survey respondents consuming marijuana via joints is at least seen as desirable in the abstract, even if those same people more commonly employ a different method.

However, the survey results strongly point towards joints being an ill-suited measure of consumption simply by virtue of not being the primary way people consume marijuana. Therefore the question “How many joints do you smoke in a week” is meaningless and confusing for most marijuana users. This suggests that any study, policy, or program that utilizes this measure as its primary mechanism for determining rates of marijuana use will be fundamentally flawed. It also suggests that the person asking the question may come off as foolish – not helpful if the goal is serious and valid collection of data.

A few stray observations:

I find it interesting that bowls/pipes are drop from 2nd to 5th place when considering primary versus preferred method of consumption. I suspect there is a convenience factor for bowls/pipes that plays a heavy role here. It would be interesting to look into how primary method of consuming marijuana shifts in states where the convenience factor of bowls/pipes is mitigated by reducing or eliminating the necessity of discretion.

Many respondents noted I did not include concentrates of various types in the survey – this was a serious omission. While a number of respondents used the “other” field to include this data it is possible that the above results could change significantly if concentrates were included. However, it is unlikely that including concentrates as an option would have resulted in joints taking a larger share of either primary or preferred methods of consumption.

Detailed survey results:

What is (or was) your primary (i.e., most common) method of consuming marijuana? Bowl 592 26.74% Bong 642 29.00% Blunt 108 4.88% Joint 366 16.53% Vaporizer 403 18.20% Edibles 13 0.59% Other 90 4.07%