More than 1 in 10 veterans ages 65 to 84 used cannabis in the previous month, a new analysis of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) data published in JAMA Network Open suggests.
To learn more about cannabis use in older adults, researchers turned to the Veterans Affairs Cannabis and Aging Study, which follows a national cohort of veterans and their cannabis use. The respondents’ mean age was 73.3, and 85.4 percent of them were men.
Of 4,503 total respondents, 51.3 percent had a cannabis-related term in their medical records. Over 57 percent of respondents said they’d used cannabis at some point, and 14.1 percent said they’d used cannabis within the previous year.
The self-reported reasons for medical cannabis use varied, including pain (56.4 percent who used cannabis medically) and trouble sleeping (16 percent). While consumption types varied, smoking was most popular, followed by edibles, and women were likelier to report edible use than men. Respondents ages 65 to 75 were likelier to say they had used cannabis within the past 30 days than those 76 and older.
Among those who said they’d used cannabis in the past month, 36.3 percent met the researchers’ criteria for cannabis use disorder (CUD). Those who used edibles only were less likely to have cannabis use disorder than those who inhaled cannabis.
“Our findings highlight the importance of screening older veterans for frequent and disordered cannabis use and informing older veterans about the risks of developing CUD,” they write, adding that growing social acceptance of cannabis use and rapid legalization is likely to affect older veterans.