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More baby boomers are using grass and other cannabis products, and are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol and abuse drugs, researchers said Thursday.
Nine per cent of people aged 50 to 64 reported using marijuana in the past year, double the same age group in 2006.
More flexible attitudes may encourage older people to try cannabis, the researchers reported in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Unsurprisingly, those who used marijuana as teens were more likely to say that they were still grass fans, the New York University team. discovered.
"While current users are more likely to be young adults, the baby boomer generation is unique in that they have more experience with marijuana than any generation that preceded them," wrote the doctors. Benjamin Han and Joseph Palamar.
But they feared that marijuana smokers were also more likely to use alcohol, smoke cigarettes and use drugs.
"The baby boomer generation has grown during a period of significant cultural change, including an increase in the popularity of marijuana in the 1960s and 1970s," Han said in a statement.
"We are now in a new era of changing attitudes toward marijuana, and as stigma diminishes and access improves, it seems that baby boomers are increasingly smoking it. .
Baby boomers are generally defined as people born between 1946 and 1964. The over 50s group also includes members of the next generation, commonly known as Generation X.
For their analysis, Han and Palamar used the answers to a large national survey of 17,600 adults. Nine percent of them reported using marijuana in the past year and almost 55% said they tried it at least once in their lifetime.
Three per cent of adults aged 65 and over reported being current users of marijuana and 22% said they had tried it at least once.
Overall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 7.5% of people aged 12 and older are current users of marijuana, compared to 5.8% in 2007.
NYU's analysis showed that few people were using cannabis products for the first time in the Middle Ages.
"Most baby boomers who recently used marijuana were first used in the 1960s and 1970s. That does not mean they have been smoking marijuana for years, but most current users do not are not new insiders ".
People were also asked about other habits and the researchers said they had seen disturbing trends.
"A worrisome finding of our study was the higher prevalence of alcohol use, nicotine addiction, cocaine use and drug abuse disorders among adults of old age. middle-aged and older who had used marijuana in the previous year "wrote.
Physicians should ask older patients if they are using marijuana because it can interact with prescription drugs, the team recommended, which may indicate addiction issues.
And the survey indicated that users think marijuana is harmless, they said. But that's not it.
"Acute undesirable effects of marijuana use can include anxiety, dry mouth, tachycardia (fast heart rate), high blood pressure, palpitations, wheezing, confusion, and dizziness."
"Chronic use can result in chronic respiratory conditions, depression, impaired memory, and reduced bone density."
In addition, the National Institute on Drug Abuse said Thursday that more than 13% of young adults not attending a college or university say they use marijuana almost every day.
Colorado legalized marijuana use for medical purposes in 2010 and made recreational marijuana use in 2014. Medical cannabis is legal in 29 states and Washington, DC.
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