Article Excerpt: Cannabis use among older adults is rising rapidly nationwide, and New Hampshire’s most recent therapeutic cannabis data suggests the New Hampshire residents over age 56 may be following the same trend.
A 2025 analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine found cannabis use among adults age 65 and older increased nearly 46% between 2021 and 2023. In New Hampshire, adults ages 56 to 65 represented the largest group of qualifying patients in the state’s Therapeutic Cannabis Program in both 2024 and 2025, according to state data. Adults ages 66 to 75 represented the second-largest group. Combined, data from the New Hampshire Therapeutic Cannabis program shows that just over 7,500 qualifying patients in 2025 were age 56 to 75, up nearly 12% from about 6,700 the previous year…
As older adults turn to cannabis products that include the psychoactive ingredient THC for relief, they should pay close attention to dosing, potential medication interactions and any longer-term cognitive effects, according to Dr. Alan Budney, a professor of psychiatry and biomedical data science at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine.
“In my book, this is a sad movement of cannabis, medical cannabis, in that we’ve kind of told everybody that cannabis can be good for these things, and we’ve made it easily available,” he says. “And so, people are trying it. You can’t blame them for trying it because they’re suffering from different illnesses or different symptoms that our medical system can treat, but not that well.”
Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/4cbesysr
Article Source: New Hampshire Magazine