What comes to mind when you think of first-time cannabis users? Who do you think represents the fastest growing demographic of cannabis users? If you said millenials or Gen-Xer’s, you’d be wrong. It’s actually baby boomers and other senior citizens. According to CBS News, the number of U.S. cannabis users over the age of 55 has increased from 2.8 million to 4.3 million within the past three years.
Reporters at CBS News agree that more seniors switching to natural cannabis, as a safer alternative to prescription drugs is a good thing. People 55 and older are 14 percent of the national population, yet they consume over 30 percent of prescription drugs in the U.S.
CBS News interviewed Steve DeAngelo, owner of Oakland’s Harborside Health Center. DeAngelo thinks even more seniors will switch to cannabis for pain management and other ailments as the legal industry continues to grow.
“There’s an ironic, almost tragic phenomenon, which is that seniors, who are one of the groups who can most benefit from use of cannabis, are the single group which remains most opposed to reforming cannabis laws,” DeAngelo said in the interview with CBS News.
DeAngelo and his colleagues have been reaching out to seniors about cannabis for years. He is spot on in his reasoning. Seniors likely make up the largest group of American voters who still oppose cannabis legalization. And while seniors tend to vote more than young people, reaching out to them about cannabis could be crucial in the fight for legalization.
“We’ll see our grandmothers and our grandfathers and our great grandmothers and our great grandfathers benefiting from this substance and advocating that use. Who wants to fight with their grandmother and their grandfather?” DeAngelo added.
As the 2016 election cycle heats up, cannabis legalization remains a hot button issue. Despite some candidates seemingly favoring decriminalization if not outright legalization, almost all have trotted out the same prohibitionist rhetoric we’ve heard from the establishment for years. There’s good reason for this. Even the politicians who seem to be the most people-minded still have the interest of police unions on their minds. And they know that as a whole, police unions vote for the continuance of cannabis prohibition in droves.
As soon as you get finished reading this, go have an honest conversation with your grandparents about cannabis. They could help end the plant’s senseless, near-century old prohibition once and for all.
Not surprising- at all. It’s the “Grandmas and Grandpas” who have been smoking consistently – more or less- since they were young adults in the 60’s and 70’s. We (at least the vast majority of us) have not turned our backs on cannabis at any time during the last 40-45 years. I will turn 60 in a few months, and have smoked since the early 70’s… that’s more than 40 years! I am married just as long, physically and mentally healthy, raised three kids into productive adulthood, and I am college educated as well as certified in the medical field. The only time it would have been more appropriate to associate smoking marijuana with ‘only young people’ would have been before the 1990’s. That’s when most of us crossed over the 35 year old line…..
I’m 66 as of last April.Smoked pot consistently since 1965 and God willing will still be using it in another 51 years.I was diagnosed as being schizoaffective when I was 46 (schizoaffective is an unholy alliance of bipolar and schizophrenia disorders.My brain doctor explained that being a rapid cycler I could be manic,depressed and psychotic at the same time.Beleive me when I
say that for that ride you want to be securely strapped into your seat.Marijuana has been my
safety harness for 51 years,and it has served me well.When I was a bipolar youth I didn’t exactly experiment with drugs,I completely embraced them.There was almost nothing I wouldn’t and in time didn’t try.In honesty I would have to say heroin is my all time favorite
high,and I have done none in over 35 years.You see it is just far to good and just happens
to be dangerously and much to often fatally addictive.I have lost more than one friend to it’s feindish grip in my life.Through all my drug years I smoked pot regularly and consumed large
quantity’s of the only two drugs I ever allowed myself to become addicted to,nicotine and Satan’s brew alchohol.I could play with other drugs without ever losing the capacity to quit
them at will.It was not until my mental illness was diagnosed and I entered therapy that I was
able to quit everything completely,once and for all,except alchohol and nicotine.It took 4 more
years of struggle and failure to exorcise alchohol from my life and a year more for the cigs.I can fortunately say that I am drug free and have been for the last 10 years.Now I take my medication from my brain M.D. and smoke pot for my arthritis.I have developed arthritis throughout.My neck,mid and lower back,1 shoulder replacement and the other shoulder will
need replacing in the next 2 to3 years,both hips,hands and wrists.Most days can be painfull
and if I went to pain management I could blanket that pain in opiates,however,I would have
to quit smoking pot (medicinal marijuana is still a quite large no no in Oklahoma) which helps settle my mind and eases some pain.So what to do?I decided that rather than become addicted to my favorite drugs and be pain free with an unsettled mind I would rather have a peacefull mind with some pain.Actualy some days it can be it can quite painfull,however, I still think I made the right choice.Marijuana for me is medication and until I either die or am incarcerated for it I will continue using it.Actualy since pot is readily available in prison I guess I’m a liftime user.