US older generation going to pot

More older US people are using marijuana as a recreational drug, figures out today show.

Numbers aged 50 and older reporting marijuana use increased from 1.9% to 2.9% from 2002 to 2008, according to surveys from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The rise was most dramatic among 55 to 59-year-olds, whose reported marijuana use more than tripled from 1.6% in 2002 to 5.1%.

Observers expect further increases as 78 million baby boomers born between 1945 and 1964 get older.

For many the drug never held the stigma it did for previous generations, and they tried it decades ago.

Some have used it ever since, while others are revisiting the habit in retirement, either for recreation or as a way to cope with the aches and pains of ageing.

Politically, advocates for legalising marijuana say the number of older users could represent an important shift in their decades-long push to change US laws.

“For the longest time, our political opponents were older Americans who were not familiar with marijuana and had lived through the ’Reefer Madness’ mentality and they considered marijuana a very dangerous drug,” said Keith Stroup, the founder and lawyer of NORML, a marijuana advocacy group.

“Now, whether they resume the habit of smoking or whether they simply understand that it’s no big deal and that it shouldn’t be a crime, in large numbers they’re on our side of the issue.”

The drug is credited with relieving many problems of ageing: aches and pains, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and others. Patients in 14 states enjoy medical marijuana laws, but those elsewhere buy or grow the drug illegally to ease their conditions.

But older users could be at risk for falls if they become dizzy, and smoking marijuana increases the risk of heart disease and can cause cognitive impairment, said Dr. William Dale, chief of geriatrics and palliative medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Centre.

He said he would caution against using it even if a patient cites benefits.

“There are other better ways to achieve the same effects,” he said.

Pete Delany, director of applied studies at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said boomers’ drug use defied stereotypes, but is important to address.

“When you think about people who are 50 and older you don’t generally think of them as using illicit drugs – the occasional Hunter Thompson or the kind of hippie dippie guy that gets a lot of press maybe,” he said. “As a nation, it’s important to us to say, ’It’s not just young people using drugs it’s older people using drugs.”’

Older marijuana users often say they smoke in less social settings than when they were younger, frequently preferring to enjoy the drug privately. They say the quality and price of the drug has increased substantially since their youth and they are not as paranoid about using it.