After a variety of studies showed that bisexuals, especially women, were three times more likely to have smoked weed than lesbian and straight women, The Daily Beast took a look at possible reasons why that was happening.

Dr. Margaret Robinson, a research scientist at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network who is also bisexual, spoke with The Daily Beast about the research she’s been doing on bisexual females and the amount of social stigma they deal with, which could possibly explain the need for all the weed smoking.

The responses she got from many of the bisexual women in her focus groups indicated they felt like they had no community and didn’t even exist, since they were so often told to pick a sexuality or that their orientation was just a lie they were telling themselves because they didn’t want to admit to one sexual orientation or another. They said that weed was a way to distract themselves from that pain, confusion, and feelings of isolation.

While one outside study did suggest that bisexual men were also more likely to smoke weed than straight men were, bisexual women are still smoking even more than bisexual men, which Robinson said may be a reflection of the numerous issues they’re up against as women in general, coupled with additional elements of biphobia and a lack of community support.

Robinson said bisexual women don’t often have great coping skills to deal with all the things they’re up against, saying, “The context for bisexuals is generally one of high stigma and social isolation. People rarely thrive under those conditions.”

Granted, many would argue there are worse ways to manage really difficult mental illness struggles than weed smoking, but harmless or not, it’s extremely sad to think about how much farther we have to go as a society when it comes to helping our bisexual friends feel included and loved.