How is cannabis use viewed in dating circles nowadays? This is what a recent survey conducted by Drug Rehab USA hopes to address as efforts are being made to investigate the stigma of cannabis among the public. This survey has the potential to help scientists, legislators, and the public better understand how the stigma of cannabis has changed as it increasingly becomes legalized across the country.
The survey was comprised of 1,000 U.S. adults who have experienced substance use in dating and were group based on generation: Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers. The participants were asked a series of questions regarding how substance use were viewed as a red flag, how it impacted attraction, responding to a partner’s substance use, how it impacts relationships, setting boundaries, honesty regarding substance use, financial impacts, impacting intimacy, relationship changes if the partner quits substance use. In the end, the survey found that only about 25 percent view marijuana use as a dating red flag, while roughly 80 percent Millennials and 70 percent Gen Z adults say they’re comfortable with a partner using cannabis.
The survey notes, “Ultimately, it seems that avoidance — not substance use itself — is what creates the most strain. When concerns go unaddressed, distrust and resentment can build, shaping how partners treat one another. Addressing it early and plainly doesn’t guarantee alignment, but it does give couples a clearer framework for deciding what connection, compromise, and compatibility truly mean for them over time.”
This study comes as cannabis legalization continues to increase across the country, with more than half the states having either fully legalized recreational cannabis or medical cannabis to some extent. In contrast, only a handful of states continue to have cannabis listed as fully illegal, for both medical and recreational purposes.
What new insight into cannabis and dating will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Drug Rehab USA, Marijuana Moment
