Why Do So Many Older Adults Smoke Weed?
Elegant vaporizer pens and other attractive products have already helped to destigmatize cannabis use among older Americans. “Legalization seems to make those who don’t use it less afraid of it, and therefore less judgmental,” says Joe, a 56-year-old hemp consumer who prefers not to give his real name.
The Woodstock generation is now an average of seventy years old. They have encountered too much grass to understand that cannabis does not kill, but it has great therapeutic potential. Moreover, older people tend to use marijuana in US health system statistics. A 2016 study found that in states where access to medical marijuana is regulated by law, patients (especially older people) received fewer prescriptions for traditional drugs to treat depression, anxiety, pain, and other chronic problems.
Although some doctors have expressed concern about the self-medication of
old woman smoking pot almost everyone agrees that the health consequences of using opioids are much worse.
The results of the study were first published in the Washington Post. There, among other things, it is said that Americans consume significantly more cannabis than 30 years ago. But this dynamics is created by the
old people generation, consumption in younger age groups does not show such growth, and in some it is on the decline.
Ten years ago, Shari Horn suffered a broken toe after surgery.
“My feet have plates, screeds and screws, and sometimes they start to hurt,” she says.
That’s why 66-year-old Horn uses cannabidiol-based cannabis ointment. The ointment has an analgesic effect.
When she developed bursitis of the shoulder, the ointment did not help, but the tincture of cannabidiol with THC, the psychoactive ingredient of cannabis, helped.
After dinner, Horn also likes to smoke a cannabis pipe:
“In my opinion, it is relaxing and generally useful.”
Many of her neighbors in Laguna Woods, California, where she works in the City Council, have also acquired similar habits. Most of the locals are elderly people.
80-90-year-olds, even retired Air Force colonels, are using cannabis to relax,” Horn says. “Almost everyone I know uses it in one way or another.” That includes her husband Hal, a 68-year-old retired insurance agent who says marijuana helps him fall asleep.
The use of medical marijuana among elderly Laguna Woods residents is so ubiquitous that a local cannabis pharmacy provides them with a free bus to travel for goods. Old men take cannabis from a variety of ailments – from arthritis and neuralgia in diabetes to back and insomnia injuries – so the pharmacy offers seniors a discount.
