What is this aroma that we suddenly feel, in a public park or when crossing teenagers with somewhat reddened eyes? Firecrackers, joints, cigarettes that make you laugh... Here is the elephant in the china shop of French public health policies:we all know smokers - perhaps you yourself are - and yet, the consumption of the flowers and resin of marijuana remains strictly prohibited in our regions. Nowadays, however, cannabis is smoked among all social classes. And the repressive policy acclaimed by the political class for decades – one of the toughest in Europe – is therefore in this respect a spectacular failure:year after year, young French people are champions of Europe in cannabis consumption.
But what about our elders in all this? After all, it was the baby boomers, the generation born immediately after the war and who now make up the bulk of the battalion of seniors, who democratized and publicized cannabis use in the 1960s — or at least those who among them were among the hippies and other beatniks who, it is true, totally marked their era and its popular culture, but ultimately represented perhaps a less hegemonic contingent than we have since imagined. So, is cannabis use among the elderly a reality?
In the United States, where the medicinal use of the plant is legal in the majority of states, and where its recreational use is now legal in 18 of the 50 states as well as in Washington D.C., this facilitated access has been accompanied by a strong increase in use among people aged 65 and over — the proportions of smokers in these age categories almost doubling in just a few years, which statistically represents a truly enormous leap. However, two of the reasons why cannabis is prescribed medically, but also why some practice self-medication where medical use remains prohibited (France only began experimenting with it in 2021 in "a very controlled and limited" on only 3000 patients, and this for serious pathologies such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, etc.), are anxiety and depression - two pathologies which tend to occur in a particularly pronounced way in the elderly, an age when radical changes occur, with consequences that are not always positive, or even downright disturbing:you reach retirement and must suddenly rethink or at least rebuild your whole way of life, you lose loved ones or spouses, deceased or sick, you loses autonomy, one suffers from isolation... If for some, this age is synonymous with new life and fulfillment, for others, it can generate fears and anxieties likely to to cause mental disorders.
Seniors therefore tend to turn to cannabis for medical reasons. In addition to depression and anxiety, cannabis can alleviate certain pains, especially chronic ones, or help with sleep disorders, again problems that are more often found in the elderly. In addition, the plant is considered extremely effective by its users to alleviate their tribulations:it sometimes appears as a miracle cure for many patients who have exhausted the conventional drug offers from pharmaceutical laboratories. Finally, studies tend to show a preventive aspect in the face of brain senescence:cannabis would slow down its decay and help fight against neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases.
The fun aspect of cannabis, as well as naturalness, makes it all the more attractive compared to molecules with unpronounceable names created in the laboratory. Because after all, there is a reason why its use remains immensely popular despite strict prohibition, and why humans throughout history have used psychoactive substances. Why not combine the useful with the pleasant, and alleviate his suffering by laughing a little? In this respect, cannabis would also have a very positive effect on the libido of many users, where the shoe tends to hurt with advancing age!
In short, if it is certain that we are not about to see gardening workshops with maintenance of cannabis plants in nursing homes, nor their residents consuming joints and other space cakes , everything seems to indicate that the consumption of this plant would have beneficial effects on the health and well-being in general of our elders. And if, as with many things in life, we must be wary of abuse, and problematic consumption is naturally possible and must be flushed out and combated, we must nevertheless remember that the consumption of cannabis has a personal and social cost. lower than many other drugs, starting with the legal ones such as alcohol and tobacco.
Cannabis has not always had such good press. Let's go back a bit, and for many seniors, especially across the Atlantic, aggressive and racist propaganda gave cannabis as bad a reputation as heroin, or later crack. Smoking cannabis led to all sorts of vices, including interracial relationships. Drug prohibition has indeed always been associated with the criminalization of the working classes and racial minorities, whether it be the anti-opium laws in San Francisco in 1875 against the Chinese, the prohibition of cannabis in 1937 directed then against Mexican-Americans, or later the fight against the crack epidemic, which was particularly virulent against poor African-Americans in urban centers.
It is because the criminalization of drugs and the war against them, if they are presented as public health issues, are also a means of securing funding for the bureaucracies responsible for implementing them, as well as mobilize voters during election campaigns. However, faced with the failure — not to say the counter-productivity — of "drug war" type policies and the success of more liberal experiments in many countries (Portugal in Europe is a good example) , the tide has now apparently turned, and the United States, the spearhead of this type of policy, has at least changed its tune with regard to cannabis and its derivatives.
In a social context where the use of the plant is demonized - including here where, even if our elected officials still have particularly dusty positions on the subject, a growing part of the population considers itself in favor of legalization or less to a decriminalization of consumption — it is therefore natural to see its use becoming more democratic among all age groups. In the United States again, cannabis is now a business like any other — with all that entails of structural injustice, since many young, predominantly black men are still serving sometimes extremely harsh prison sentences for selling the same plant. with which opportunistic businessmen make a fortune today. And while in France, any psychoactive use therefore remains prohibited, we see CBD shops sprouting up in all the cities of our country, this molecule present in hemp with relaxing but non-psychoactive properties, with an imagery that most often surfs on the ambiguity of this situation, which undoubtedly helps to normalize the plant as a whole.
All things considered, however, the consumption of cannabis among the elderly remains in reality very marginal compared to that of the youngest. Only about 10% of 55-64 year olds say they have ever used it, compared to more than a quarter of the youngest - which tends to suggest that hippies were not as numerous as we tend to remember, or that there are among our elders many people stricken with amnesia! This consumption by seniors increases with the level of study, as well as the socio-professional class - perhaps because a more educated and socially high person will more easily tend to feel above the law, while that alcohol will be preferred among the most disadvantaged — and is also much more marked among men than among women. Nevertheless, given the boom in cannabis and the increasing rate of use among younger age groups, it is certain that use among seniors is bound to increase over the next few years and decades. .
