Credit: Photo by Robert Voldivia
Who do you picture when you think of your average marijuana user? When it comes to Ohio’s state-run medicinal marijuana program, you may want to adjust your assumptions.

Data released by the State of Ohio Pharmacy Board reveals that 62 percent of the roughly 64,000 medicinal marijuana cardholders in the state are 40 or older — and one in five is 60 years old or older. By contrast, only one in 10 cardholders is 18 or 19 years old.

In some ways, that makes sense. Older patients are more likely to have chronic pain — the most common reason for medicinal marijuana cardholders to seek the treatment in Ohio. They’re also more likely to be seeking relief for one of the 20 other conditions that can qualify one for a license to buy medicinal marijuana. Many are also at or nearing retirement age or in jobs where they’re less likely to be drug tested.

Michael Mick, 68, is one of the state’s roughly 4,000 veterans who use medical marijuana. Mick, who served in Vietnam and is disabled, told The Columbus Dispatch last week that he’s utilizing the state’s program because he’s afraid of the possible additives in illicit marijuana.

“I’ve got a lot of friends that are my age and they still smoke,” he told the paper. “They have offered it to me and I said, ‘No, when I can get it legally, that will be different.’”

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2 replies on “Two-Thirds of Ohio Medicinal Marijuana Users are 40 and Older, State Reveals”

  1. Ohio, especially Cleveland area, is just a senior Mecca. Which is a big part of why it sucks.

    While ranting I may as well add that these boomers, who for most of their lives made it a crime for everyone else to smoke weed, are now selfishly using again, just like in the 60s.

    Once these old farts go away, life should be better…..

  2. Okay, millennial, I’ll forgive you for pulling nonsense out of your posterior orifice. Just this one time.

    So the Boomers, for most of their lives, made it a crime for everyone else to smoke weed? Obviously, you weren’t here yet and didn’t live through that era. Their parents and grandparents, the WWII vets and those from even earlier, were the ones who criminalized pot in the Thirties.

    Open a history book. Do some goddam homework for a change. Boomers were the ones breaking those laws and doing all the toking! They are not now “selfishly using again, just like in the 60s”…they’ve NEVER STOPPED SMOKING IT! I’ve been smoking dope for fifty years!

    You’re the one who needs to go away and to STFU. You and your cohorts will have to live with the legacy of what Trump has wrought. You little idiots either stayed home in 2016, or voted for Trump out of spite, or else you threw your votes away on Bernie and all the other fringe candidates. Thanks a lot!

    The Boomers will soon be dead, for the most part, and we won’t have to live through the hellish times ahead. But YOU WILL. I pity you young fools. You have many years of suffering left. My time is almost done. Bye, Felicia. Enjoy your miserable lives!

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