The legislation provides discretion to physicians to issue medical cannabis recommendations to any patient who may benefit from it. It also allows those ages 65 or older to self-certify for a registration card absent a doctor’s recommendation.
Tag: seniors
More than one-third of older consumers (34 percent) reported using cannabis products four or more days per week.
Eighty-three percent of participants said that cannabis is “less harmful to a person’s health compared to alcohol” and 67 percent said that it is a “highly important treatment for older adults.”
“Most older adults in the sample initiated [their] cannabis use after the age of 60 years and used it primarily for medical purposes to treat pain, sleep disturbance, anxiety, and/or depression.”
“In this sample of individuals with neuropathic pain, no significant differences were found in cognitive performance between non-MC [medical cannabis] licensed and licensed patients.”
The increase in seniors’ self-reported use of cannabis coincides with rising public support for marijuana legalization among older Americans.
Investigators reported a “strong positive association” between subjects’ frequency of cannabis use and self-reported improvements in pain, health-care utilization, and overall health-related quality of life.
Seniors who report the use of cannabis over the past year say that it improves their overall quality of life, according to survey data published in the journal Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine. Authors reported, “Past year marijuana users reported improved overall health, quality of life, day-to-day functioning, and improvement in pain.”