“The ultimate goal of medicine isn’t just to add years to a person’s life, but to add quality and vitality to those final years. Medical cannabis can be a profoundly helpful tool in this journey.”
By Peter Grinspoon, Harvard Medical School
As a primary care physician, I see it every day in my clinic: seniors are increasingly turning to cannabis to find relief from the medical indignities of aging.
Whether it’s the grinding discomfort of chronic pain, the “gray” fog of late-life anxiety or the persistent, soul-crushing frustration of insomnia, older adults are discovering that the cannabis plant can often do what many of our standard prescriptions cannot—provide genuine relief without a laundry list of debilitating side effects.
Our elders are finding an exit ramp from the “polypharmacy” treadmill, seeking to decrease their reliance on traditional pharmaceuticals that can often come with more baggage than benefit.
The demographic shift is nothing short of a sea change. Older patients are currently the fastest-growing group of cannabis users in the country. To put some hard data behind that: roughly 25.8 percent of medical cannabis patients are 65 or older, and a staggering 34.5 percent fall into the 50–65 range.
This shift is
Read full article on Marijuana Moment
