What Canadian Seniors Need To Know About Legal Cannabis

What Canadian Seniors Need To Know About Legal Cannabis

In the past few months, there’s been a lot of discussions and concerns about how cannabis will affect the youth once Canada legalizes recreational cannabis on October 17.

But those that aren’t being talked about as much are the seniors throughout Canada, many of whom are interested in exploring cannabis use although they are already taking several prescription medications. Mixing cannabis with prescription drugs isn’t advisable, as this could have serious interactions.

However, for seniors who wish to navigate the world of cannabis as soon as it’s legalized, may have to wait some time for experts and authorities to develop regulations for their safety.

Early in October, advocates for elderly cannabis use met in Vancouver at a conference to discuss seniors’ cannabis consumption, reports CTV News. “We do have that population of baby boomers who are going to be moving into seniors’ care very soon, so their expectations of what is provided in a seniors’ home or assisted living is very different from that of their grandparents,’ said Daniel Fontaine of the BC Care Providers Association.

“We have a lot of members who provide services to seniors across British Columbia in the form of long-term care, assisted care, home care, etc… and this issue has come up,” he said. The discussions also focused around the consumption of cannabis by people who work at assisted care living facilities, but Fontaine disclosed that he believes the industry will go through changes over time after issues are brought up by both employees and seniors.

“The reality is with stigma around cannabis use falling dramatically and rapidly, lots of people 5- years and older are turning back to cannabis,” says Terry Lake, Hexo Corp. Cannabis’s vice president. “They may have consumed it in their high school years, university years, and then went away from it, but now they’re turning back.”

The Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health is also working on drafting cannabis-use guidelines to help clinicians better support the elderly. Seniors are concerned not just with potential interactions with their drugs, but how the drug can affect their heart rate or impact their risk for falls. “The marketing of marijuana has really overshadowed the science,” says Rand Teed, a drug and alcohol counsellor in Regina who also works with the coalition. “The information that doctors have received so far has been quite confusing for them in many cases. Initially, Health Canada approved cannabis for use with anxiety, but in lots and lots of cases, cannabis increases anxiety,” he told CBC.

Teed is among the 9 experts gathering from around Canada to develop science-based guidelines on how cannabis will affect seniors. The funding comes from Health Canada, but the experts are expected to publish the guidelines by end of 2018 yet. More importantly, the coalition has a focus on creating guidelines that specifically cater to the unique needs of senior citizens since their concerns vary from the rest of cannabis consumers.

However, Teed believes that cannabis shouldn’t be viewed as a cure-all especially for seniors. “There’s been some confusion between getting high and getting well,” he says. “If you randomly start to use something without getting some decent information and decent advise, you’re putting yourself at risk for creating some medical complications,” he says.

One of his biggest takeaways for seniors is to take cannabis “low and slow”. He recommends that if a clinician thinks a senior may benefit from using cannabis, they should prescribe them starting with small doses, mostly because cannabis now is much stronger than it was in the past, especially those that seniors likely experimented with when they were younger.

“Seniors are more at risk of experiencing harm related to cannabis simply because of age-related changes that they experience,” says Dr. Amy Porath, the Director of Research at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. “We hope this project puts the spotlight on this issue,” she adds. Porath leads the group of researchers who are working on the new guidelines.

Hopefully, the recommendations they come up with will help improve the quality of life for thousands of seniors across Canada. It would not only help them prevent and treat various conditions, but it could also replace harmful opioid medications that many of them in this age group are being prescribed by physicians.