Cannabis vapes now outselling flower in California – thanks to Gen Z
“Vape sales first surpassed flower sales last June and have maintained the lead ever since, according to state Department of Cannabis Control data.
That month, California consumers spent $113.3 million on vape products compared to $110.7 million on flower, according to the DCC.
In February 2026, California cannabis retailers spent $110.4 million on vape products compared to $98.4 million on flower.
It’s a dramatic shift from 2021, when cannabis flower was outselling vaporizers by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.
In April of that year, California cannabis retailers reported selling $214.8 million worth of flower compared to $104.2 million in vapes.
After vapes and flower, pre-rolls are the third most popular cannabis product in California’s roughly $4 billion market, followed by edibles and concentrates.
According to data analytics firm Headset, Gen Z allocates 38% of their cannabis spending to vapes, compared to 32.5% on flower, SFGate reported.
Gen Z is defined as people ages 14 to 29.
Along with older adults, cannabis retailers are keen to attract Gen Z consumers, as conventional wisdom suggest Millennials are the key consumers for the legal marijuana market.
“Gen Z is becoming a larger part of the market by the day so eventually their love for this category is going to affect the category assortment of the overall market,” Mitchell Laferla, a senior data analyst at Headset, told SFGate via email.
eadset’s data shows that flower still outpaces vapor pens in California and in other states, but the gap is narrowing, and sales of vape products will surpass flower in the company’s data in a matter of months, Lafelra told SFGate.
Over the past year in other states, Headset data shows:
Colorado: 5.2 million units of flower sold for $71.4 million, while 2.1 million vape units sold for $55.4 million
New York: 2.6 million units of flower sold for $132.1 million compared to 2 million vape units for $94.2 million
Missouri: 3.4 million units of flower for $110.2 million compared with 1.9 million vape units for $70.7 million
Oregon: 3.2 million units of flower for $49.5 million compared with 2.4 million vape units for $47 million “
