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Have these weed-loving hippies made their way into the new millennium?
Maybe yes: new research shows that the pot is no longer the drug of choice for young people. Nowadays, more and more people of middle age and even older people are illuminating.
In fact, data from the federal survey show that 9% of adults aged 50 to 64 and almost 3% of those 65 years and older have used marijuana in the last year.
"It's almost 1 in 10. It's still a lot less than a lot of other age groups, but it's rising steadily," said senior researcher Joseph Palamar, associate professor at NYU population health department Langone. .
It doubled the percentage of people aged 50 to 64 who reported using marijuana ten years ago (4.5%) and more than seven times the percentage of adults aged 65 and over
Most of these people used marijuana in the 1960s or 1970s and come back to the gallows as it becomes more socially acceptable, Palamar explained.
The study found that almost all marijuana users aged 50 to 64 and over half of people aged 65 and over first used marijuana at age 21 or younger.
"Reading that they are falling back into cannabis use as adults is not very surprising to me," said Dr. Tim Brennan, director of the Mount Sinai West and Mount Hospital Addiction Institute. Sinai St. Luke. York City.
Severe drug laws and the responsibilities of adulthood could have led these people to stop using marijuana from the 1980s, he said.
"Now that states legalize it, they may feel able to resume their use," said Brennan, who did not participate in the research.
For the study, researchers analyzed the responses of 17,608 adults aged 50 and over from the 2015-2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Participants were asked about marijuana use, especially when they used it for the first time and if they used it during the past year.
Brennan found that some of these seniors had used marijuana on the recommendation of a doctor.
About 15% of users aged 50 to 64 and 23% of those 65 and older said that a doctor had recommended them.
But there is not much scientific evidence that marijuana would have a beneficial effect on health, said Brennan. Without further research to establish its effectiveness, doctors should not prescribe medication.
"To tell a patient to use cannabis seems to me to ignore all the scientific steps we usually take to start prescribing a new therapeutic agent," Brennan said.
The survey responses also link the use of the pot to other unhealthy substances. Older people who use marijuana were more likely to report alcoholism, nicotine addiction, cocaine use, and misuse of prescription pain medications.
Importantly, older people digging their old bongs might react differently to the pot of what they remember in their youth, said Palamar.
Today's marijuana is much more potent and age can change the way your body reacts to a drug, he explained.
"They may have been able to handle it at the time, but that does not mean they can cope with it now," said Palamar. "It may not affect you the same way when you're in your sixties, if you have not used it for decades."
Seniors also take more prescription medications, increasing the risk of an undesirable drug interaction involving their pot, Palamar and Brennan said.
"If you are older and taking prescription drugs, you need to know how marijuana can react with these medications. You do not want bad reactions, "said Palamar.
Linda Richter, director of policy analysis and research at the Center on Addiction in New York, agreed that the pot may present unique hazards to older users. She was not part of the research.
"The marijuana industry has promoted the drug as being harmless and even beneficial to an ever-growing list of common health problems among aging adults," she said.
"[They] may not realize that their vulnerability to the harmful physiological and cognitive effects of alcohol and drugs such as marijuana intensifies with age, especially in terms of cardiovascular, respiratory effects , balance, reaction time and memory that also consume alcohol or use prescription drugs, "Richter said.
Finally, Brennan said that middle-aged and elderly people should keep in mind the reaction their grandchildren might have to Pop-Pop or Maw-Maw blowing on a joined, said Brennan.
"I do not think it sends a good message, that's for sure," Brennan said. "The children are impressionable, and many children are turning to their elders."
Richter was in agreement. "With more and more parents and grandparents using marijuana, it's getting harder and harder for kids to understand that they should not use drugs," she said.
The study was published Sept. 6 in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
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