5 Ways Cannabis Can Help Us As We Age

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As a society, our seniors are suffering. The health problems associated with aging—everything from joint pain and arthritis to depression and more serious illnesses like cancer—are typically treated with opiates and other pharmaceutical medications that numb, rather than fix, the problem.

According to data collected for the U.S. government (via the service IMS Health), 55 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers were written last year for people 65 and up. This marked a 20 percent increase over five years, and almost double the growth rate of the nationwide senior population. The number of benzodiazepine prescriptions climbed 12 percent over that period, to 28.4 million.

This is especially tragic since there already exists a safe plant medicine that can successfully mitigate—and sometimes cure—many of those health problems: cannabis.

Cannabis has been used in healing for thousands of years. Countless patients in the 23 US states that allow legal access to cannabis for medical purposes have used it for decades to treat pain, nausea, inflammation and dozens of other symptoms. While the majority of medical marijuana patients are younger people, seniors are increasingly turning to cannabis for help for their pain and psychological problems.

Sue Taylor, a metaphysical minister, retired Catholic school principal and grandmother from Oakland, California, is leading the charge to educate seniors about the many potential health benefits of cannabis.

She is the senior outreach coordinator for Oakland’s enormous Harborside Health Center medical cannabis dispensary. Her job is to educate seniors who, like she once did, often think of marijuana as anything but a legitimate medicine. She sits on the Commission on Aging in Alameda County and visits retirement homes and senior groups. She also hosts luncheons and seminars to educate people about various cannabis medicine options.

Taylor, now a medical cannabis user herself, was raised to believe cannabis was a dangerous drug. Since it was (and still is) a Schedule I illegal drug at the federal level, she, like many Americans, bought into the widespread myth that it was addictive and unsafe. However, at the urging of her son, she eventually began to research the herb. Pages upon pages of scientific documents taught her that just the opposite was true.

She learned that cannabis medicine can be non-psychoactive and doesn’t have to be smoked –– it can be eaten, swallowed in a pill-like capsulate, dripped into a beverage as a tincture, applied to the skin like a creme or inhaled as a light vapor.  It’s generally safer and more effective than synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, especially for the elderly –– and is often much cheaper.

Over time, she became convinced that it was her duty to help connect seniors with the healing plant.

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