Weed Use among American Senior Citizens on the Rise
I personally would love to get high with my grandma. I think she’d be hilarious!
A new study from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health finds the number of people over the age of 65 are the fastest growing demographic who are experimenting with cannabis. Seniors are trying weed for a number of reasons including physical ailments, increased promotion of marijuana as a therapeutic treatment, and widespread acceptance of cannabis.
Many baby boomers tried cannabis in the 1970s when they were young and drug experimentation was high. However, the numbers fell in the 1980s when President Reagan passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act that increased penalties for drug possession. Older Americans began to avoid weed publicly for decades because of the stigma that was associated with it.
As legalization ramped up and dispensaries became more common, the stigma associated with cannabis lightened up. More older Americans started using cannabis to deal with everyday issues like lack of sleep, chronic pain, and minimal appetite.
Increased use of cannabis calls for an increase in education on consuming marijuana products. Cannabis affects us in different ways and the weed of today is a lot more potent than the weed of yesteryear. Governments should do more to provide resources to the public about the benefits and disadvantages of cannabis so that citizens can make choices based on accurate information.
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