Cannabis’ Fastest Growing Demographic
The Fastest-Growing Medical Cannabis Demographic Might Surprise You
Alex Iorg
When most people picture a medical cannabis user they may imagine a cancer patient or picture someone managing chronic pain or anxiety and some still may think of a younger adult with blue hair. However, the data tells a different story.
Older adults are now the fastest-growing segment of medical cannabis consumers in the United States. And a growing body of peer-reviewed research suggests they have very good reasons to be.
Three significant studies published in the last two years paint a compelling picture: cannabis is increasingly seen by seniors as a legitimate, safer alternative to pharmaceuticals — and the science is beginning to back them up.
Who Is Actually Using Medical Cannabis?
A 2026 joint study from the University of Colorado and University of Utah published in JAMA Network Open — one of the most respected medical journals in the world — interviewed 169 adults aged 60 and older in Colorado who were seeking edible cannabis products for pain, sleep difficulties, or mental health concerns. The average participant was 70 years old. Many had master's or doctoral degrees. These were not recreational thrill-seekers. They were patients.
What the researchers found was striking. The most common reasons older adults turned to cannabis were:
Avoiding the side effects of pharmaceutical medications — participants specifically cited concerns about long-term NSAID use, sleep aids like Benadryl linked to cognitive decline, and the risks of prescription opioids and benzodiazepines.
Having exhausted every other option — steroid injections, physical therapy, prescription sleep aids, acupuncture. Many had tried it all and found inadequate relief.
Worsening age-related symptoms — joint pain, declining sleep quality, and growing anxiety that their existing treatments simply weren't addressing.
The majority — 57.5% — chose combination THC and CBD products, reflecting a sophisticated understanding that cannabinoids may work better together. Only 13.8% chose THC-dominant products alone, while 28.7% selected CBD-only options.
Critically, the researchers found that these older adults were largely making these decisions without physician guidance. Because many healthcare providers feel unequipped to counsel patients on cannabis, seniors are turning to peer networks, personal research, and anecdotal evidence to navigate their choices. This is a gap Utah's medical program — and its providers — are uniquely positioned to fill.
Emerging Science: Cannabis Targeting Inflammation at the Source
While patient experience and long-term safety data are critical, the most exciting frontier may be the biological mechanisms by which cannabinoids actually fight disease.
A 2026 study published in Pharmaceuticals by researchers at Israel's Rambam Health Care Campus focused on cannabigerol (CBG) — a non-psychoactive cannabinoid found in the cannabis plant — and its effects on rheumatoid arthritis, one of the most common and debilitating autoimmune conditions affecting older adults.
The findings were remarkable. In human cell experiments, CBG reduced key inflammatory proteins — TNF-α and IL-6, both central drivers of joint inflammation — by 68% and 72% respectively. It also suppressed the inflammatory signaling pathways that trigger and sustain the arthritis response.
In a live animal model of arthritis, CBG reduced immune cell infiltration into inflamed joints by 48% and nearly eliminated elevated inflammatory markers in the bloodstream. Clinical scores for arthritis severity improved significantly in treated animals.
Crucially, CBG does thiswithout psychoactive effects, unlike THC. This makes it a potentially accessible option for older patients who want the anti-inflammatory benefits of cannabis without any "high" — and who are concerned about the functional impairment that the JAMA study participants frequently cited as a drawback.
The researchers were clear that these findings are preclinical and need further validation in human trials. But the mechanism is biologically sound, and it opens a door for a new class of cannabis-derived anti-inflammatory treatment targeted at the very immune processes that drive conditions like RA — conditions that disproportionately affect older Utahns.What the Science Says About Safety
One of the most persistent concerns about medical cannabis — particularly among older patients and their families — is the fear of long-term cognitive harm. A landmark 2024 study published in Brain and Behavior directly addressed this question, and the results were reassuring.
Danish researchers followed 5,162 men for an average of 44 years, testing their cognitive ability with the same standardized intelligence test at around age 20 and again at age 64. They then compared cognitive decline between cannabis users and non-users.
The result? Men with a history of cannabis use showed no greater cognitive decline than non-users over four and a half decades. In fact, they showed slightly less decline — a finding that held up even after controlling for education, alcohol use, smoking, psychiatric history, and physical health.
Among cannabis users, neither starting before age 18 nor years of frequent use was significantly linked to greater cognitive decline. And notably, 92.4% of cannabis users had not used cannabis in the year prior to the follow-up — suggesting that any short-term cognitive effects of cannabis are reversible with abstinence.
This matters deeply for older patients who are weighing the risks of cannabis against the risks of the pharmaceuticals they're trying to replace. Long-term cognitive harm — one of the most frequently cited fears — does not appear to materialize for adult users over a lifetime of moderate use.
What This Means for Utah's Medical Program
Utah's medical cannabis program was built on a foundational promise: that patients would have access to safe, medically supervised cannabis care. But as these studies make clear, the patients who stand to benefit most — older adults managing chronic pain, sleep disorders, autoimmune disease, and anxiety — are also the patients facing the greatest barriers to access.
The JAMA study found that older adults are making cannabis decisions largely without medical guidance, relying on word-of-mouth and personal research because their doctors aren't equipped or empowered to advise them.
If Utah wants to serve its fastest-growing patient population, it needs to make commonsense reforms:
Allow physicians to recommend cannabis via telemedicine, as Florida, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania already do, so older patients don't have to travel to access care.
Trust physicians to recommend cannabis for conditions they believe it can treat, rather than requiring them to work around a government-approved list.
Expand available product options so that patients seeking preferred products can find what they need in Utah rather than crossing state lines.
The Bottom Line
Three peer-reviewed studies — published in JAMA Network Open, Brain and Behavior, and Pharmaceuticals — converge on the same conclusion: medical cannabis is increasingly important to older adults, it does not appear to cause the long-term cognitive harm critics have long feared, and the biological mechanisms behind cannabinoids' anti-inflammatory properties are being validated at the cellular level.
Older Utahns deserve a medical program that follows the lead of the best science available — one that empowers their physicians, removes unnecessary barriers, and ensures they can access safe, effective cannabis medicine without having to leave the state to get it.
Sources:
Delaney RK et al. "Edible Cannabis and Pain, Sleep, and Mental Health Management in Older Adults." JAMA Network Open. 2026.
Høeg KM et al. "Cannabis Use and Age-Related Changes in Cognitive Function From Early Adulthood to Late Midlife in 5162 Danish Men." Brain and Behavior. 2024.
Aswad M et al. "Cannabigerol (CBG) Modulates Neutrophil Activity and Ameliorates Rheumatoid Arthritis Pathogenesis." Pharmaceuticals. 2026.
