There’s a new king in town.
California cannabis consumers are now spending more money on vape products than on flower at their licensed dispensaries – a program first.
Vapes took over as California’s top-selling product category in July 2025, with $117.8 million in sales compared to $113.2 million for flower, and continued to widen that gap in the remaining months of the year, according to Metrc track-and-trace data provided by the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC).
By December 2025, vape sales outpaced flower sales by nearly $17 million for the month – $124.4 million to $107.6 million – while pre-rolls commanded $64.7 million in sales, edibles commanded $45.6 million, and concentrates/extracts commanded $29.2 million.
California’s year-over-year vape sales increased roughly 0.6% from 2024 to 2025, despite overall sales across all product categories decreasing 5.2%, from $4.66 billion to $4.41 billion, according to the DCC. Flower sales dipped 12.6% year-over-year.
Vape sales gaining a larger market share in recent years is largely attributed to the coming of age of Gen Z cannabis consumers, who have long favored vapor pens over flower, according to cannabis data-driven tech company Headset.
For instance, Gen Z cannabis consumers spent 45.7% of their money on vapor pens and just 22.9% of their money on flower in 2025 in California, according to Headset’s data on wallet shares.
Driven by this generational preference, vapor pens “demonstrated remarkable resilience” in California’s shrinking market, Headset Analytics Manager Cooper Ashley told Cannabis Business Times.
“The relative growth of vapor pen market share within this contracting market was driven entirely by Gen Z customers, whose vapor pen sales increased by 5.9% year-over-year,” he said. “Vapor pen sales decreased in all other age groups (Millennials: -4.6%; Gen X: -6.5%; Baby Boomers: -9%). The good news for vape brands is that new Gen Z customers are aging into the regulated market each day when they turn 21 – continuing to grow their most receptive addressable market.”
In 2026, Gen Zers are 14 to 29 years old, meaning more than half of the generation is now of legal age to purchase cannabis at an adult-use dispensary. They now account for more cannabis sales in the U.S. than Baby Boomers, who have long favored flower and edibles over vapor pens, according to Headset.
In California, Baby Boomers spent 37.6% of their cannabis money on flower while just 14.4% on vapor pens in 2025, according to Headset.
While the top-selling cannabis product categories vary by state market, California’s current trend of decreasing flower sales has been unfolding since a pandemic-related peak in April 2021, when the state’s dispensaries sold an all-time high of $214.8 million in flower products for the month, according to the DCC.
Flower represented 44.3% of all licensed cannabis sales that month (April 2021), compared to 21.5% for vape products, 11.9% for pre-rolls, 9.9% for edibles and 9.2% for concentrates/extracts, according to the DCC.
However, by September 2025, California flower sales dropped to $104.2 million, their lowest monthly figure since February 2020 (before the COVID-19 shutdowns).
As a result, vape sales controlled the largest market share in California for the first time in 2025, according to the DCC.
With Gen Zers continuing to age into the state’s adult-use marketplace, this trend of vape sales outpacing flower sales will likely continue.
For cannabis businesses hoping to take advantage of this shifting market opportunity, a few of California’s most popular flower strains are also the most popular vapor pen strains, including Blue Dream, King Louis and Gelato.
Blue Dream in particular was California’s best-selling strain in both product categories in 2025, commanding $44.4 million in vapor pen sales and $21.7 million in flower sales for the first 11 months of last year, according to Headset.
The other top-selling vapor pen strains for the year were Pineapple Express, Watermelon, Strawberry Cough, Granddaddy Purple, Northern Lights, Mazar x Blueberry OG, and Maui Wowie.
While flower still reigns king in most newer adult-use cannabis markets, California is not a unicorn when it comes to vape sales, especially on the West Coast.
Vapor pen sales also overtook flower sales in late 2025 in Washington, commanding 29.8% of the state’s market share compared to 28.5% for flower in December, according to Headset.
And in Oregon, vapor pen and flower sales are approaching parity, each accounting for roughly 30% of total category sales, according to the industry analytics providers.
