Business is Boomer – Why Older Flocks are Flocking to Cannabis

Older Adults Are Using Marijuana More Than Ever Before | Florida News | US News

Business is Boomer! At least, this is what cannabis sales trends have been screaming for the past five years. Over the past five years there have been a steady uptick in cannabis consumption among older people.

A recent article in US News focused in on this topic in the State of Florida, which has had medical cannabis legal for some years now. While the overall size of “boomer tokers” are still small compared the larger market – the increase within this demographic has been significant.

In today’s article, we’ll be taking a closer look at why older people are flocking to cannabis, what this means for dispensaries and the cannabis market in general.

Boomer Endocannabinoid Starvation

The older generation, people between the age of 70-90, were young adults during the hippie era. Their exposure to cannabis was heavily influenced by government propaganda. Since 1971, when the War on Drugs were decreed by Richard Nixon – there has been an active campaign against cannabis which reached its peak in the 1980s and 1990s.

This means that the generations that were born from 1947-1967, and earlier – lived in a heavily censored world where cannabis was deemed “public enemy number one”. This means that their primary understanding of cannabis was skewed with government propaganda.

They were viscerally against the idea of marijuana.

This matters because now we know that the endocannabinoid system – which was only discovered in the 1990s – fully matures at roughly the age of 25 in which our endogenous cannabinoid production diminishes significantly.

The Endocannabinoid system is responsible for maintaining homeostasis in the body and virtually plays a role in every major system in our body. Imagine not replenishing this system for fifty years.

Think of it as having a chronic vitamin deficiency and how it would affect your health. What would happen when all of sudden – those vitamins were replenished? Would that show a significant improvement in your health?

Of course it would!

Similarly, older folk are feeling the effects of having their endocannabinoids replenished with phytocannabinoids that act very similar to our endocannabinoids. Just like the vitamin example – these folks are reporting that they “feel more energized”, “can sleep better”, “eat better”, “better mood”, “reduced pain” – all because their endocannabinoid system is beginning to function as normal once more.

This is partly why we are seeing a trend within older people consuming cannabis at a higher rate.

Aging into Cannabis

The second major reason comes down to age. Currently in the United States the average “Death Age” sits at about 74 years. This means that the average person alive today was born after 1947.

In other words, as time passes on people begin to age out of prohibition. Sure, it will still be a while until we have a generation of old people who never saw prohibition. That would probably be achieved somewhere in the year 2090-2100 considering that legalization occurs globally over the next five to ten years.

However, by the year 2040-2050, the vast majority of older people would have lived during the transition away from prohibition. This means that every year that passes, the market share for older people will only continue to grow. In fact, by the 2030s cannabis for older people could become standard practice, especially as we continue to discover how important the endocannabinoid system truly is and how replenishing the system is critical to good health.

Therefore, as time passes by – we can only expect more people within the age group to become empathetic to cannabis medicine.

What does this mean for the market?

One thing is certain – one of the fastest growing demographics within the cannabis industry is the older generations. Currently, the vast majority of marketing efforts are geared towards the average cannabis user – people between the age of 25-45 more or less.

However, as times passes by we can expect to see greater emphasis on this newly developed demographic considering that older people take far more medication than younger people.

The average elderly patient takes about five medications and the average nursing patient is taking about seven medications at any given time. (Source)

Many patients who switch to cannabis manage to reduce their intake of these medications and in some cases – specifically when it comes to anxiety medication, pain medication, and the likes – cannabis can completely substitute these.

This means that creating cannabis-based medicine specifically geared towards the elderly will become big business over the coming decades. Of course, the way that cannabis is being consumed will probably change as well, resembling medicine more than smoke-able herbs.

However, this doesn’t mean that flower will disappear within this demographic. However, oils, tinctures and capsules will most likely remain the dominant means of ingestion.

Dispensaries in Florida have already seen an uptick in elderly consumers. Some of them saying that “Sundays are for the elderly”. It then becomes a smart strategy to begin to cater specifically to this demographic considering that they are conditioned to take medicine regularly and in many cases do have disposable cash on hand.

While currently within this demographic the sample of users are still much smaller than the main demographic (25-45 year olds), it would be wise for any business owner to begin to accommodate for the rise in frequency of older patients.

Some of the things that breeders can think about is growing “milder” cannabis. In other words, the race for superior THC will become secondary within this demographic. You’ll want a more balanced strain that isn’t designed to get you high as opposed to providing you with the greatest phytocannabinoids profile.

By the year 2050, I can see that a vast majority of older folk will be consuming cannabis in one way or another, especially as legalization is on the verge of happening in mass.

The question is; how prepared are you for the silver stoners coming your way?