When people think of the newly emerging legal cannabis industry, they typically think of young folks. The twenty-something college-age youngsters running around living life wildly going to parties, balancing work and school who like to toke on the weekends. Far too often, when people are picturing those that make up the green industry, they leave out the gray. Gray, of course, would be the senior cannabis consumers that make up a reported estimated 25% of the cannabis market.
Senior citizens are finding something in cannabis unexpected. It seems they see more than just relief. They’re finding a touch of their youth. Many of the medications, the senior community are prescribed, come with side effects that make people sleepy, dizzy, or in need of a bathroom constantly. Other side effects include things like limiting exposure to the outdoors, certain types of pets and eating certain types of foods.
When a senior citizen can successfully replace these medications with cannabis, they often find a little something more. When the pain medication you’ve been taking for your arthritis makes you sleepy, you might feel good, but what good does that do if you’re laying in bed napping? On the other hand, if you consume cannabis for arthritis and find yourself feeling good and awake, the world has opened up for endless possibilities of things for you to do with this newfound time!
The negative side to senior citizens and cannabis consumption is that many senior citizens are on a daily cocktail of prescription drugs. There’s no way of knowing how these prescription drugs may interact with cannabinoids such as THC, CBD, CBN, or others. The lack of federal support for legalization places the senior community, along with the rest of the United States at risk for potential health issues.
By merely removing cannabis from the controlled substance act or even rescheduling it from a schedule one narcotic research could be conducted to help solidify how cannabis might interact with commonly prescribed medications.
You can scour the internet and find countless stories of senior citizens having success using cannabis as an alternative to prescription drugs. Many of these people will tell you that cannabis didn’t make them high in life; it offered them a higher quality of life. The difference between sleeping your day away in a medicated daze or out enjoying it with friends and loved ones after consuming a little bit of haze is night and day.
Beyond consumer claims about the effectiveness of cannabis for a multitude of different symptoms and conditions, there are countless research studies that support the medical attributes of cannabis as well. Back in 2014, a study on Alzheimer’s disease and cannabis determined there was great potential suggesting cannabis as a potential therapeutic treatment option for individuals who have the disease.
The thought of consuming cannabis, helping to keep one from losing their mind, is very appealing to those in their golden years. When you add in that people are finding relief in cannabis for conditions such as chronic pain, inflammation, arthritis, skin conditions, and more, it’s easy to see why many are turning to this widely misunderstood plant.
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