Adults over the age of 65 could experience a number of health benefits by using cannabis, according to new research.
In new clinical data published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine, researchers from Hebrew University and the Ben Gurion University of Negrev in Israel found that “therapeutic use of cannabis is safe and efficacious in the elderly population.”
The Israeli team of researchers studied 2,736 patients over the age of 65 that began to use cannabis as treatment for any sort of health problems, and found that a great majority found remarkable benefits.
“After six months of treatment, 93.7 percent of the respondents reported improvement in their condition and the reported pain level was reduced from a median of 8 on a scale of 0-10 to a median of 4,” the study’s authors observed.
According to the study, the most common health problems cited for using medical cannabis were for pain and cancer. Experts found that 18.1% percent of elder patients either reduced their dose of opioid analgesics, or stopped using them altogether.
“Cannabis can decrease the use of other prescription medicines, including opioids,” the researchers wrote.
Only a small number of minor adverse effects were commonly reported, such as spells of dizziness and dry mouth.
A 2016 report by CBS News found that Americans the age of 55 and over are the fastest growing group of marijuana users in the nation.
“The older population is a large and growing part of medical cannabis users. Our study finds that the therapeutic use of cannabis is safe and efficacious in this population,” the authors concluded.
