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Most states now have legal medical marijuana, and 10 of them, including California, allow anyone 21 years of age or older to use the pot recreationally.
LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. – The group of white-haired people – some pushing walkers, others using canes – are arriving right now at the gates of Laguna Woods Village, a community of luxury retirees in the hills scenic that frame this southern suburb of California. miles from Disneyland.
There, they board a bus to quickly get to a building that, with the exception of the green sign of the Red Cross, looks like a trendy café-bar. Most people, usually between the ages of 70 and 80, spend the next few hours enjoying a light lunch, playing a few bingo games and choosing their supply of cannabis products.
"It's like the ultimate experience among seniors," laughed Ron Atkin, a 76-year-old retired beauty retailer, as he attended the bingo behind the health clinic. Bud and Bloom marijuana in Santa Ana.
Most states now have legal medical marijuana, and 10 of them, including California, allow anyone 21 years of age or older to use the pot recreationally. The federal government still bans the drug even though acceptance is increasing. The 2018 General Social Survey, an annual sample of Americans' opinion, recorded a record return legalization of 61%, and people aged 65 and older are becoming more supportive.
Indeed, many industry leaders say the fastest growing group of customers is Atkin's – aging baby boomers or even slightly older boomers looking to treat pain. Insomnia and other diseases related to old age with the same grbad as many of them once pbaded around at parties.
"I would say that the average age of our clients is about 60, maybe even a little older," said Kelty Richardson, registered nurse at Halos Health Clinic in Boulder, Colorado, who offers medical examinations and sells cannabis recommended by a doctor. Online Store.
Its medical director, Dr. Joseph Cohen, organizes "Cannabis 101" seminars in the nearby Balfour Senior Living community, for residents wanting to know which strains are best for relieving arthritis pain or improving sleep .
Relatively few scientific studies have verified the benefits of marijuana for specific problems. According to a report published in 2017 by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, it is proven that the pot can relieve chronic pain in adults, but the study also concluded that the lack of scientific information poses a risk to public health.
At Bud and Bloom, the winners of the bingo games carry new pens for vape, but Atkin is not really there for that. It's been two years since he regularly comes to buy chocolate bars and sublingual drops infused with cannabis to treat his painful stenosis in the spine since taking prescription opioids that he had stopped from to work.
That's the "desperation" that brought him here, he said, adding that his doctors had not suggested he try marijuana for medical purposes. But they did not discourage him either.
The clinic is filled with 50 people on the bus who run counters and coolers containing everything from capsules to drops, to cannabis-infused drinks, not to mention many weeds in the old.
Adele Frascella, leaning on her cane, buys a packet of gummy candies that will help her control her arthritis pain.
"I do not like taking an opioid," said Frascella, 70.
Dressed in the fashion of glittering silver earrings, Frascella confirms with a smile that she was a pot smoker in her youth.
"I did it when I was 18, 19, 20 years old," she said. "And then I had a baby, I got married and I stopped."
She picked it up a few years ago, even investing in a "volcano", an expensive, high-tech version of the old-fashioned bang that Gizmodo calls "the ultimate gadget for stoner". But these days, like many other seniors, she prefers edible products to tobacco.
Renee Lee, another baby boomer who smoked when he was young, took over the torch more than a dozen years after the clinical psychologist had undergone a brain operation and of other medical procedures which, according to her, made him take "10 drugs a day, four times a day". "
"And I was not doing better," she said, adding that she had asked her doctor if she could try marijuana for medical purposes as a last resort. They said go and she found that it ended her pain.
In 2012, she founded the Rossmoor Medical Marijuana Club in her community of high-end retirees in San Francisco Bay.
"We started with 20 people and we kept quiet for about a year and a half," she said, noting that although California legalized cannabis for medical purposes in 1996, it was still considered in some circles as a prohibited drug.
Her group has more than 1,000 members and regularly organizes events, including lectures given by cannabis-friendly doctors and nurses.
According to Gary Gary Small, a professor of psychiatry and aging at the University of California at Los Angeles, people aged 65 and over make up the fastest growing segment of the population who consume the most marijuana quick.
He thinks more studies on the effects of the drug on the elderly are needed. And while it may improve the quality of life by relieving pain, anxiety and other problems, he said, careless and unsupervised use can cause problems.
"We know that cannabis can have side effects, especially among the elderly," he said. "They can have their heads spinning, it can even affect their memory if the dose is too high or new ingredients are incorrect, and dizziness can cause falls, which can be quite serious."
Richardson said Colorado had seen a slight increase in the number of hospital visits soon after the state legalized cannabis in 2012. The problem, he said, was often caused by novices who consumed too much food.
It's a lesson that Dick Watts, 75, has learned the hard way. The retired New Jersey roofer who is guarding a winter home in Laguna Woods Village began having trouble sleeping all night while he was 70 years old. He attended a seniors' seminar, where he learned that marijuana could be useful, so he bought a cannabis treat. He immediately ate everything.
"It was almost deadly," laughed Watts.
Now, when he has trouble sleeping, he just takes a little piece of candy before bed. He said that he wakes up lucid and rested.
"And I have it on a shelf so my grandchildren can not access it," Watts said.
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