Cato Research Reports: Cannabis Availability for the Elderly Enhances Mental Health

Cato Research Reports: Cannabis Availability for the Elderly Enhances Mental HealthPhoto byBudding .onUnsplash

In a new research report released by the Cato organization it states that medical cannabis availability improves the self-reported mental health of people aged 65 and above. Likely pain relief was a leading factory. Cannabis is a good treatment for chronic pain caused by nerve disease (neuropathy)—the most common justification for medical cannabis and a common chronic condition among older adults, per the report. The pain relief explanation is also consistent with prior studies that found that cannabis legalization reduces opioid prescriptions.

The Cato research results demonstrate that the locations of cannabis dispensaries have a large effect on whether cannabis legalization affects consumers. This is an important consideration for state regulators considering medical and recreational cannabis legalization and how to approach the proliferation of nondispensary businesses selling close cannabis substitutes, such as Delta 8, THCP, and THCA.

"Collectively, these results suggest medical cannabis availability has limited mental health effects on the population at large, with considerable mental health benefits for older adults.”

For people 65 and older, authors noted that living within 30 minutes of a dispensary “decreased the probability having a poor mental health day in the past month by about 10 percent,” which they point out was “a 3.5 percentage point decrease from an original probability of roughly 36 percent.”

The study used geographic data to” estimate medical cannabis dispensary availability’s effects on self-reported mental health in New York state from 2011 through 2021 using a two-stage difference-in-differences approach to minimize bias introduced from the staggered opening of dispensaries,” the report says.

The Cato research findings also suggest there is an urgent need to learn more about how cannabis use affects older adults. "The federal government has heavily restricted clinical research involving cannabis for decades,” it says. “President Biden reduced many of these restrictions by signing the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act into law in December 2022; however, clinical evidence on the health effects of cannabis will likely remain limited for years to come.”