{"id":616983,"date":"2024-06-18T11:06:05","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T15:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/rates-of-problem-marijuana-use-are-rising-among-seniors-drugs-com-mednews\/"},"modified":"2024-06-19T00:02:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T04:02:06","slug":"rates-of-problem-marijuana-use-are-rising-among-seniors-drugs-com-mednews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/rates-of-problem-marijuana-use-are-rising-among-seniors-drugs-com-mednews\/","title":{"rendered":"Rates of Problem Marijuana Use Are Rising Among Seniors – Drugs.com MedNews","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

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Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm<\/a>. Last updated on June 18, 2024.<\/span><\/p>\n

By Ernie Mundell HealthDay Reporter<\/p>\n

TUESDAY, June 18, 2024 — As marijuana use becomes legal and more accepted across America, more seniors are developing unhealthy relationships with the drug, a new report suggests.<\/p>\n

A look at data on almost 56 million Medicare beneficiaries finds “rates of health care encounters with cannabis-related disorders increased from 2017 through 2022,” according to a study led by Dr. Silvia Perez-Vilar<\/a>, of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n

The FDA team’s analysis included all Medicare recipients except nursing home residents. It focused on Medicare claims mentioning any medical incident linked to cannabis use.<\/p>\n

The numbers showed a steady increase in cannabis-linked medical care among seniors over the five years of the study.<\/p>\n

By 2022, “rates were greatest in states or territories with both adult and medical use legalization,” the team found, with about 45 such cases recorded for every 10,000 Medicare claims.<\/p>\n

Rates of cannabis-linked claims were slightly lower in states where medical marijuana was legal, but recreational use was not (41.5 cases per 10,000).<\/p>\n

In states where marijuana use was still illegal for either recreational or medical reasons, the rate of weed-linked claims among seniors fell to 27.7 cases per 10,000, Perez-Vilar’s team said.<\/p>\n

Experts have voiced concerns<\/a> over the rise in addictions and mental health crises linked to highly potent cannabis in the past few years, mainly among the young. For example, one recent study<\/a> found that teens who use cannabis face 11 times the odds for a psychotic episode compared to teens who abstain from the drug.<\/p>\n

The new study suggests that these dangers may extend to older adults.<\/p>\n

“Overall, data suggest that increasing rates of health care encounters documenting cannabis-related disorders among older adults might be associated with the type of cannabis legalization,” the FDA team said.<\/p>\n

The findings were published June 18 in the journal JAMA Network Open<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Sources<\/h2>\n