Seniors are among the fastest-growing age group in Canada for using cannabis. A Statistics Canada report found that more than 400,000 seniors reported using cannabis in the past three months in 2019, up from 40,000 seniors who reported using in 2012. More recent data suggests that trend has continued.
Meanwhile, the number of seniors ending up in emergency departments with cannabis poisoning has also risen sharply since legalization, new research shows. It’s led some experts to call for more education and better guidelines around safe cannabis consumption for older adults.
A study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine looked into cannabis poisoning in seniors.
It found that the number of people 65 and older visiting Ontario emergency departments with cannabis poisoning tripled between 2015 and 2022.
The report broke the data down into three periods: pre-legalization (January 2015 to September 2018); legalization permitting the sale of dried cannabis flowers only (October 2018 to December 2019); and legalization opening the market to edible cannabis (January 2020 to December 2022).
It found the rate of ER visits for cannabis poisoning among seniors saw a spike following the first phase of legalization. Once edibles were legalized, the rate rose yet again. (The study did not differentiate between which poisonings were intentional, such as self-medication, and which were unintentional, such as accidental ingestion.)
Overall, the study recorded 2,322 emergency department visits over the eight-year span, which Stall acknowledges are “relatively small numbers” compared to the approximately three million seniors in Ontario. As well, cannabis use among older Canadians is relatively low compared with other age groups, at seven per cent.
