American Consumer Survey to Include Cannabis Use

Consumer and media research specialist GfK MRI is adding data on medical and recreational use of cannabis to its Survey of the American Consumer.

The survey measures consumption of more than 6,500 products and services in nearly 600 categories and GfK MRI is now capturing and adding data on recreational marijuana use within the past six months, and medical use in the last year. Clients will be able to analyze the new data in the context of consumers' product ownership, leisure activities and beliefs, media usage and thousands of other data points which the firm already collects. In addition, research will be conducted with GfK's online KnowledgePanel, which is based on a representative sample of the US population and will now include a survey focusing on marijuana in the context of consumers' lives.

The effort was developed in collaboration with Miner & Company Studio, a strategic research agency with expertise in cannabis consumer insights. New questions are now in the field, with data scheduled to become available next March.

Karen Ramspacher, SVP of Innovation and Insights at GfK MRI, comments: 'With marijuana moving beyond stereotypical 'stoners' into mainstream medical and recreational use, MRI believes it is time to understand the implications of these changes. We look forward to trending the data nationwide and revealing the associated purchases that are impacted by new usage trends'.

Web site: www.gfkmri.com and www.minerandcostudio.com .