Green Mountain staters have a saying: "I'm from Vermont, I do what I want." Nothing embodies that rhyming chestnut quite as well as the generally relaxed attitude toward cannabis here. Technically, recreational marijuana becomes legal when Act 86 goes into effect on Sunday, July 1. But Vermonters have long had a spot in their hearts — and in their cargo shorts and plastic baggies and little tin canisters — for weed. How do we know? Because, duh. But also: We asked. Three years ago, Seven Days conducted its first-ever Weeders Survey. Though admittedly unscientific, the poll offered some choice nuggets about our readers' habits and feelings concerning cannabis. For example, a preponderance of respondents claimed that kind bud helped them de-stress, aided creativity and made them, er, kinda hungry. [content-1] Hey, we never said the results were terribly surprising — the data roughly squared with the perception that most Vermonters are pretty chill about cheeba. After all, cannabis has been decriminalized in the state since 2013, and medical marijuana has been legal since 2004. Still, legalization (see sidebar for what that actually means) is a BFD. Act 86 marks a paradigm shift when it comes to marijuana in Vermont. With that in mind, we thought it high time to run the Weeders Survey again. So, last month we took an updated poll to find out what's changed — if anything — since 2015 regarding readers' relationship to reefer and how legalization might affect those views and habits. Like the previous survey, the current edition is not exactly scientific. But once again, the responses were illuminating and entertaining. Here's what we found. The Basics Overall, Seven Days collected 793 responses to the 2018 Weeders Survey. Of those, 567 respondents answered all 50 questions, which is what the following analysis is based on. That's a precipitous drop in response rate from 2015, when more than 2,000 people responded and we received 1,704 completed surveys. What gives? Perhaps with legalization on the horizon, readers simply felt less urgency to weigh in on weed. Or maybe they just forgot? While cannabis users represent a diverse array of the population, in 2015 the "typical" user in Vermont was a young-ish, left-leaning, college-educated homeowner who was either married or in a committed relationship. In 2018, the typical marijuana user in Vermont is ... a young-ish, left-leaning, college-educated homeowner who is either married or in a…
Green Mountain staters have a saying: "I'm from Vermont, I do what I want." Nothing embodies that rhyming chestnut quite as well as the generally relaxed attitude toward cannabis here. Technically, recreational marijuana becomes legal when Act 86 goes into effect on Sunday, July 1. But Vermonters have long had a spot in their hearts — and in their cargo shorts and plastic baggies and little tin canisters — for weed. How do we know? Because, duh. But also: We asked. Three years ago, Seven Days conducted its first-ever Weeders Survey. Though admittedly unscientific, the poll offered some choice nuggets about our readers' habits and feelings concerning cannabis. For example, a preponderance of respondents claimed that kind bud helped them de-stress, aided creativity and made them, er, kinda hungry. [content-1] Hey, we never said the results were terribly surprising — the data roughly squared with the perception that most Vermonters are pretty chill about cheeba. After all, cannabis has been decriminalized in the state since 2013, and medical marijuana has been legal since 2004. Still, legalization (see sidebar for what that actually means) is a BFD. Act 86 marks a paradigm shift when it comes to marijuana in Vermont. With that in mind, we thought it high time to run the Weeders Survey again. So, last month we took an updated poll to find out what's changed — if anything — since 2015 regarding readers' relationship to reefer and how legalization might affect those views and habits. Like the previous survey, the current edition is not exactly scientific. But once again, the responses were illuminating and entertaining. Here's what we found. The Basics Overall, Seven Days collected 793 responses to the 2018 Weeders Survey. Of those, 567 respondents answered all 50 questions, which is what the following analysis is based on. That's a precipitous drop in response rate from 2015, when more than 2,000 people responded and we received 1,704 completed surveys. What gives? Perhaps with legalization on the horizon, readers simply felt less urgency to weigh in on weed. Or maybe they just forgot? While cannabis users represent a diverse array of the population, in 2015 the "typical" user in Vermont was a young-ish, left-leaning, college-educated homeowner who was either married or in a committed relationship. In 2018, the typical marijuana user in Vermont is ... a young-ish, left-leaning, college-educated homeowner who is either married or in a…