Older Adults Increasingly Use Cannabis Medicinally

Interesting article but certainly not a surprise. Older folks often experience muscle skeletal discomfort at elevated levels due to the wear and tear of aging. Cannibis can and does give relief without the dangers of addiction. In short cannabis beats opiods or booze all day long. Every day. All year long.

Of course there are a myriad of ailments older people have to deal with and cannabis often is the best and most effective way to treat them. I know as I've used cannabis medicinally for going on four years.

Cannabis is very good for improving mindfullness and acheiving a better and fuller understanding of just who YOU really are. In other words cannabis helps you see yourself as you reakky are. Just like Bob Marley said it does. If you do not resist its ability to help you grow and become a better person.

When the feds finally decriminalizing cannabis extensive research into the vast benefits of cannabis will explode and we will finally be able to unlock much that has been kept from us for nearlt 100 years. Thanks to the feds archaic and very short sighted marijuana prohibition at the federal level.

On to the story.

 Cannabis Life Network - Ever wondered how the legalization of recreational cannabis has impacted older adults? Apparently, older adults use cannabis mainly for medicinal purposes but buy it from recreational retailers without prescription – suggests a recent UBC study. (1)

What are the most common usages?

The study conducted by researchers at UBC Vancouver‘s School of Nursing involved 12 adults aged 71 to 85. Every participant had one or many medical diagnoses such as arthritis, high blood pressure and insomnia.

In accordance with this study, a 2019 Statistics Canada report suggests that older adults who are new users of cannabis are often using it for medicinal purposes. (2) Research shows that older adults use cannabis for pain or sleep. Many use cannabis products as an alternative to certain prescription drugs. There is a craze of trying out cannabis and finding out if it would work for them. “I’d been to a chiropractor, I’d been to a physio. I’d never done that before in my life … so I guess I thought, well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I’m going to a chiropractor. What – you know, sitting around in his office and – with all the other nuts – why don’t I try [cannabis]?”, said a 71-year-old male participant.

What type of cannabis products do older adults take and does it meet their expectations?

Contrary to smoking cannabis or eating edibles, older adults prefer ingesting cannabis in the form of oil, tincture drops or oil capsules. Topical creams are extremely popular as well. Interestingly, such methods of consumption help them control and track their doses which wouldn’t be easy with smoking cannabis.

Using cannabis makes most older adults feel positive and satisfied with the effects. But because many products contain THC at certain levels, it often leaves people with an unwanted high. “I was assured that this was a sort of starter dose and it would just affect arthritis. But in fact, I did get high, and it worked very well for arthritis, I’ll say that. But I also did get high and I didn’t really want to,” reported a 73-year-old woman patient.

How do older adults obtain cannabis?

According to the study, most older adults obtain their cannabis from licensed or non-licensed stores without any prescription. They find fewer product options in licensed stores, can you believe it? Only one participant bought it from a pharmacy using a prescription. Many rely on others to get their cannabis. Very often they get their cannabis from recreational stores that offer medicinal products as well.  “I tried the licensed place, and they said recreational. And then when I was Googling it, um, a lot of them said recreational, and if it did say medicinal, it wasn’t, um, topical. It was, like, medicinal but ingesting it,” said a 76-year-old woman participant. Confusions about licensed and unlicensed stores along with recreational and medicinal cannabis are very common among older adults.

This could possibly be because of the fact that their source of information are friends and acquaintances, cannabis store employees and the multiple forms of media because family physicians lack enough information on cannabis or do not support cannabis usage, the study points out. Well, this explains why many don’t use a prescription to buy cannabis products.