Emerging cannabis research often ends up disproving stereotypes about who consumes weed. Now, a new study seems to undermine the assumption that weed is primarily consumed by young people. In fact, new data shows that the number of senior citizens smoking weed has seen a rapid increase in recent years.
New Data Points to Increasing Cannabis Consumption
In a study published earlier this week, researchers analyzed stats from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, including the rates of cannabis use among senior citizens.
After looking at survey responses from 17,608 adults 50 and older, researchers identified a number of potentially important trends. In particular, they discovered that rates of use in this age group have steadily increased in recent years.
The prevalence of past-year marijuana consumption among those between the ages of 50 and 64 rose to nine percent in 2015-2016. Similarly, rates of past-year consumption among those 65 and older rose to 2.9 percent.
But the study wasn’t only looking at how many seniors now consume cannabis. They also looked for any other possible connections. One of the key connections they found had to do with the use or misuse of drugs.
When researchers analyzed this data, they found that “prevalence of past-year alcohol use disorder, nicotine dependence, cocaine use, and misuse of prescription medications were higher among marijuana users compared to non-users.”
After analyzing all data, researchers working on the project concluded that “marijuana use is becoming more prevalent in this population and users are also at high risk for other drug use.”
Cannabis and Age Cohorts: Who’s Smoking More Weed?
The data used in this study is even more interesting when stacked up against trends of cannabis use among other age cohorts. In particular, among