California’s 76-year-old ‘Weed Lady’ wants seniors using cannabis, despite doubts from medical experts

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A small display with flower pots and glass bottles on wooden shelves hangs just inside the entrance of the Farmacy cannabis dispensary in Berkeley, California’s most liberal city. “Mama Sue,” the lettering says.

To anyone who has frequented this place, the reference is obvious: These are cannabis tinctures created by Sue Taylor, the 76-year-old who co-founded Farmacy with her children and has since started making her own line of products. A former Catholic school principal, the senior citizen has grown to accept it when people call her the “weed lady.”

But the Mama Sue products, which promise help with sleep and pain, represent something much larger, too.

Older Americans once numbered among those with the greatest disdain for marijuana.

Now, seniors are the fastest-growing users of cannabis in the U.S., dominating requests for medical counsel on how best to use gummies, flocking to retirement-community information sessions about the virtues of weed and, in Ms. Taylor’s case, finding new ways to do business in their silver years. Psychiatrists and researchers, however, say the evidence for marijuana’s medical benefits is scant and the downsides underappreciated.

“People call me and say, ‘We want to get into the cannabis industry, what are your suggestions?’ I say, if they’re going to make any products or think about getting into the cannabis industry, keep seniors in mind – because we are the ones who can benefit the most, and we need it,” Ms. Taylor says.

Demographics don’t hurt, either: some 10,000 people crest the age of 65 every day in the U.S. And Ms. Taylor grows emotional when she describes the long descent into misery that can mark the twilight of life.

There are “so many seniors just sad and waiting to die,” she says. “If they need to take a puff to elevate their mood, to make them feel happy – hell, they deserve it. Our creator didn’t want us unhappy.”

California was the first state in the U.S. to legalize marijuana use for medical purposes in 1996. Today, marijuana is fully illegal in only four states, although it remains a controlled substance under federal law. In the decriminalization era, the number of adults who use marijuana at least once a year has roughly doubled, with those under 25 the most avid consumers.

But seniors have flocked to it like no other group, with 8.4 per cent of those 65 and older reporting past-year use in 2022, up 21-fold from 0.4 per cent in 2007. (In Canada, 0.8 per cent of seniors had used cannabis in the past three months in 2012; by 2019, that had grown to 6.6 per cent.)

Legalization and decriminalization expanded availability and eased stigmas. Old age provided the aches, anxiety and insomnia that prompt a search for solutions. Forty-two per cent of those who call Leaf411, a cannabis-trained nurse hotline, are 65 and older; 37 per cent are retired. The No. 1 reason for calling is pain, followed by insomnia and mental-health complaints.

Leaf411 nurses typically suggest starting small and favour gummies, which can be more easily divided into pieces by people with failing dexterity. Executive director Katherine Golden says providing medically backed information is vital, given the scale of use.

“Every independent-living facility across the country when we talk to them, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we know our patients are using it,’ ” she says.

It’s enough that specialized services are developing to cater to older people. Falguni Dave, who runs online dispensary HerbNJoy south of Los Angeles, has been seeking approval to open a dispensary near Rossmoor, a large gated retirement community. She also holds regular group sessions for retirees.

Ms. Taylor, too, built her first Farmacy location near a seniors living centre and is now planning a seniors wellness centre built around cannabis therapy. Greg Brown, who manages the Berkeley store, had one person come in with a walker who was on pills for pain, sleep and constipation. Now, they take gummies instead and “they’re off all those meds, they’re feeling better,” Mr. Brown says.

The medical profession is less convinced of marijuana’s restorative power. Suffering seniors can see cannabis as a magic fix, “this catch-all product that somehow can alleviate a lot of age-related challenges,” says Aaron Greenstein, a geriatric psychiatrist in Denver. The majority, however, don’t stick with it. “A lot of people try it maybe for a week or a month and then stop. Kind of like a diet fad.”

Cannabis, he says, may be worth trying, in particular for people who fail to find relief from standard pharmaceuticals, but “we do not have enough research or clinical data to actually know what the benefits are.”

There are limited indications that it can help with agitation in people with dementia.

But new evidence also suggests downsides: Cannabis in conjunction with some blood-thinners can raise stroke risk. With anxiety, insomnia or posttraumatic stress disorder, “there’s weak or no evidence” that cannabis is helpful, says Haley Solomon, a geriatric psychiatrist in San Diego who co-authored an article with Dr. Greenstein about cannabis use in older adults. Meanwhile, drowsiness and dizziness from marijuana can raise the risk of falls.

Seniors, too, tend to be more sensitive to pharmaceuticals, and cannabis sold today is often far stronger than weed from the 1960s.

“If there’s a higher concentration of an intoxicating substance, that could increase their potential for adverse effects,” Dr. Solomon says.

Even as a response to insomnia, scientists say cannabis is at best partly beneficial. Research by Jodi Gilman and colleagues at the Mass General Research Institute and Harvard Medical School showed “it helps people sleep,” she says. But their quality of sleep is worse.

If seniors “enjoy it, fine,” she says. “But there’s no evidence that it will help medical symptoms.”

To which Melodye Montgomery says: Come to the parties held by T’Oakland Senior Canna Club, where a few dozen seniors, some in their 80s, gather monthly to sample products gifted by companies. On offer are cannabis-infused juices, prerolled joints, even infused olive oil.

Legalizing cannabis has, she believes, set seniors free – from worry about arrest, from losing jobs and from relying only on powerful pharmaceuticals.

“You can live the life you like to live – and try to thrive,” says Ms. Montgomery, 67. “And I think our lives thrive if we’re smoking cannabis as opposed to taking other drugs.”