In California, cannabis seems to be a young person’s game. At least that’s one of the lessons one could deduce from a new study that is showing a substantial increase in the number of olds who are seeking medical help at the ER after ingesting some chronic.
As Raw Story reports, new numbers collected by UC San Diego show that in 2005, just 366 people in California over the age of 65 went to the emergency room for a pot-related issue. In 2019, just three years after it was legalized for adults, the number of senior citizens who sought emergency medical help increased to a whopping 12,167.
“While a law was passed by the state way back in ’96 approving the use of medical marijuana, a second law was passed in 2003 clarifying the legislation prior to its use becoming more widespread,” NBC San Diego reported. “Recreational use of marijuana was approved by state voters in 2016. It’s worth noting that the study shows that while ER visits spiked between 2013-17, they plateaued in 2017, the year weed became legally available for recreational use, so legalization does not appear to be connected to an increase in ER visits by seniors for cannabis-related issues.”
So why are so many zonked geezers seeking emergency treatment? Apparently, an overabundance of confidence!
“I do see a lot of older adults who are overly confident, saying they know how to handle it,” says geriatrician Dr. Benjamin Han, who authored the study. “Yet as they have gotten older, their bodies are more sensitive, and the concentrations are very different from what they may have tried when they were younger.”
In other words: Today’s pot is not your grandmother’s ganja.
(Via Raw Story)