New study shows that medical cannabis is effective and safe for the elderly

A new study Research on the use of medical cannabis by older adults has shown that it can be safe and effective, and can also help relieve chronic pain without resorting to more addictive opioid-based medications.

Researchers at’Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Ben-Gurion University Negrev and colleagues surveyed 2,376 patients over the age of 65 who had received medical cannabis treatment at a clinic in Israel. Six months later, the same patients received a second questionnaire asking them to assess changes in their pain and quality of life following cannabis treatment.

«After six months of treatment, 93.71% of respondents reported an improvement in their condition and a reduction in pain levels from 8 to 4 on a scale of 0 to 10,» the researchers noted. Most respondents also reported an improvement in their quality of life. The majority of these patients used cannabis to treat chronic pain or cancer. After six months of the study, 18% of the patients were able to reduce their opioid use or stop completely.

«Our study shows that the therapeutic use of cannabis is safe and effective in older adults,» the researchers conclude. «Cannabis may reduce the use of other medications, including opioids. Gathering more evidence-based data, including data from randomized double-blind studies, on this specific population is imperative.»

This study comes at a time when consumption of Cannabis use is steadily increasing among older adults over the past several years, as more countries and states have legalized cannabis use. In the United States, the number of people aged 65 and older who have used cannabis in the past year has increased by 250% between 2006 and 2013. In fact, this same age group is generally opposed to the legalization of cannabis