Mahjong, quilting, amateur radio, shuffleboard—Leisure World in Silver Spring has more than 80 clubs for its thousands of 55-and-older residents. Among the official groups: Cannabis 101.
Envisioning a smoky room with Cheech and Chong movies looped on the VCR? Sorry to harsh your buzz.
The club is educational, not social, according to Carminetta Verner, 90. She helped found the group after she started using cannabis to help her deal with pain and insomnia caused by a rare autoimmune disease. The club addresses only medical marijuana use, which was legalized in Maryland in 2014. In 2022, Maryland voters approved adult use, also known as recreational, marijuana.
People older than 65 are the fastest-growing group of marijuana users, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. In 2007, 0.4% of seniors reported using marijuana in the previous year. By 2016, the number rose to 2.9%, and in 2022—the most current figures available—it reached 8.4%.
The surge in use by an age group with more health concerns than younger users means that educating the older generation on using cannabis safely is key. With 89% of Americans 65 and older taking prescription medications, according to a CDC report, older adults are more likely to risk a drug interaction. Blood thinners, protease inhibitors and some sedatives might be affected, according to the Mayo Clinic, which calls medical marijuana “generally considered safe.”
Older adults most often look to marijuana to manage pain or arthritis, according to a 2020 study by the American Geriatrics Society. Others use it to help them sleep or deal with anxiety or depression. For seniors undergoing cancer treatments, marijuana might stimulate their appetite and reduce nausea.
Cannabis can address multiple problems that otherwise may require numerous medications, often with their own adverse effects or conflicts with other drugs, doctors say.
“I’ve had patients who come in with 10 to 15 different medications in their medication list and then over the course of 18 months to two years, I can get them down to two or three medications,” says Dr. Patricia Frye, medical director at Takoma Park Integrative Care and author of The Medical Marijuana Guide: Cannabis and Your Health.
About six years ago, Verner co-sponsored an educational meeting that drew more than 200 Leisure World residents. After that, the club grew steadily. It now meets quarterly and has about 75 members. Verner says members, through presentations from medical professionals and vendors, learn about cannabis: the plant, ways to use it, dosing, products and dispensaries. She stresses that older adults should consult with health care professionals before starting any treatment.
“Leisure World is a senior community with many people in their late 80s or 90s who still believe the ‘mistruths’ that were spread worldwide about the cannabis plant,” Verner says. “That’s why education about the plant is crucial.”
Rabbi James Kahn of Silver Spring, 45, has battled cannabis stereotypes and misunderstandings for decades. His grandfather, wheelchair-bound with severe multiple sclerosis, “tried everything already and had been addicted to pain pills at one point, and finally was open and desperate enough to be open to trying cannabis.” He asked Kahn, then in high school, to find some marijuana.
“By the time we saw the impact [on] my grandfather, we became not just pro cannabis … but we really as a family always had a kind of a social justice bent,” Kahn says. “It became kind of an issue of right and wrong. It was unjust that he couldn’t get access to cannabis.”
The Kahn family founded Takoma Wellness Center, a medical marijuana dispensary in Northwest D.C. in 2013. Kahn, the chief strategic officer at the center, has presented educational sessions on medical marijuana at Leisure World.
Like Verner, Kahn says education is vital, especially since prescriptions are no longer required. “So, you know, for example, cannabis makes you high? Well, that’s not always the case,” he says. “There are other cannabinoids that are nonpsychoactive that can give you some of the benefits of cannabis—such as pain relief—without making you inebriated.”
Many seniors in the Leisure World club favor gummies or other edibles because they are easy to use, Verner says. Edibles, however, take longer to have an impact, which could lead users to ingest more while waiting for the initial dose to work and cause unwanted effects, doctors say.
Frye helps patients choose the best method for taking cannabis and finding the correct dose, often through tinctures or gradually determining the effective strength of gummies. Doctors who specialize in cannabis can also help patients find the right balance of cannabidiol (CBD), which does not cause the traditional “high,” and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
“You start with a small amount and then you wait and see how that goes,” Frye says.
Cannabis also has a role in the final stage of the aging process. “Cannabis can be a really wonderful medicine to use for end of life or palliative care,” Frye says. “We can manage pain and anxiety with cannabis in a way that patients can … have more quality time and interaction with their families and friends.”
This appears in the January/February 2025 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
