Welcome to Senior Cannabis Digest. This week we look at a new study of the effectiveness of going California sober, a proposal to have Medicare pay for CBD products, treating overly aggressive dogs with CBD and much more. Enjoy.
A New Look at California Sober
There is good news for mature cannabis consumers who want to drink less alcohol, or stop drinking altogether. A new study suggests that the trend known as going “California sober” — using cannabis as a way to reduce alcohol consumption — does work — at least in the short term.
According to Juan Siliezar, in an article he penned for the Brown University website, the study was conducted by researchers at Brown University and published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
The study is described as the first randomized, placebo-controlled trial to test whether cannabis use directly changes alcohol consumption. Unlike previous research, says Saliezar, which relied on surveys or self-reported associations, this trial allowed scientists to measure cause and effect under controlled laboratory conditions.
Said Jane Metrik, a professor of behavioral and social sciences and of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, “What we found was consistent with this idea of the substitution effect popularized by the California sober trend. Instead of seeing cannabis increase craving and drinking, we saw the opposite. Cannabis reduced the urge for alcohol in the moment, lowered how much alcohol people consumed over a two-hour period and even delayed when they started drinking once the alcohol was available.”
The trial included 157 adults, ages 21 to 44, who drink heavily and use cannabis at least twice a week. Over three separate lab visits, each participant smoked cannabis cigarettes containing lower or higher levels of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, or a placebo.
The researchers found that when the participants smoked the cannabis with THC, they drank less alcohol than when they smoked the placebo. For example, when the participants smoked the lower THC dose at 3.1 percent, they drank about 19 percent less than when they had the placebo. When they smoked cannabis with the higher THC dose at 7.2 percent, they drank about 27 percent less alcohol.
The authors also noted that it remains unclear whether the same reduction in alcohol use would hold up in real-world settings, where people drink socially or use higher-potency cannabis. In addition, the researchers caution that the results of the study don’t mean that cannabis should be recommended as a therapeutic substitute for alcohol, emphasizing that there is a risk individuals could progress to problematic use of cannabis, as well.
Juan Siliezar is Associate Director of Media Relations and Leadership Communications at the Brown University School of Public Health. You can learn much more by reading his article. Just click on the following link.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2025-11-19/cannabis-alcohol
It should be noted that music icon and cannabis entrepreneur Willie Nelson and guitar wunderkind Billy Strings have weighed in on the topic of going California sober. To hear their testimony on the topic, click on the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Medicare and CBD
You might call it a Thanksgiving miracle of sorts. A federal health agency has announced plans to authorize health insurance coverage for CBD under certain Medicare programs.
So says Kyle Jaeger, reporting on this story for Marijuana Moment. According to Jaeger, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which is administered by HHS, is set to publish a notice in the Federal Register about a series of changes concerning “marketing and communications, drug coverage, enrollment processes, special needs plans, and other programmatic areas” for insurance programs it oversees. One of those changes deals with cannabidiol (CBD) coverage.
CMS is charged with administering both Medicare and Medicaid. These programs provide health care to over 160 million Americans.
Jaeger notes that the policy change was circulated about a month after the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with the head of an organization behind a video President Donald Trump shared over the summer that touted the therapeutic potential of the cannabinoid. That video specifically called for Medicare coverage for seniors who want to use CBD as an alternative treatment.
The proposed rule for 2027, writes Jaeger, would amend regulations, which currently state that any “cannabis products” cannot be covered. The new policy would prevent coverage for only “cannabis products that are illegal under applicable state or federal law, including the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”
Jaeger also points out that recent changes to federal hemp law that are set to take effect next year could significantly limit the types of products patients could access. The revised language of the statement broadly discusses coverage eligibility for cannabis products legal at the state and federal level, but the agency also explicitly noted that the rule would allow Medicare Advantage plans to “offer hulled hemp seed, hemp seed protein powder, and hemp seed oil,” given that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already completed a review concluding that those materials are considered generally recognized as safe (GRAS).
Jaeger also cites an analysis by the Bloomberg news organization that indicates the CMS policy document suggested an early version of the plan could focus on seniors in oncology and palliative care settings—though it’s unclear to what extent the report relates to the latest Federal Register notice, which it did not mention.
It should be noted that the policy change would not be implemented until 2027 so this proposal is far from set in stone. In addition, while the proposal would signal a significant policy change in the U.S., Germany, Colombia and the Czech Republic already have programs in place that allow public health insurance programs to either pay for cannabis-based medicines outright or reimburse patients for money spent on cannabis-based medicine.
As always, Kyle Jaeger does an excellent job of bringing clarity to a complicated cannabis policy issue. To learn more, we suggest reading his article in the November 26, 2025 issue of Marijuana Moment.net.
CBD and Pets
There may be hopeful news for dog owners who have a difficult time managing an overly-aggressive pet. New research shows that dogs given CBD supplements, over time, exhibit lower aggression than other dogs.
That’s the word from TG Branfalt, reporting for Ganjapreneur.com. According to Branfalt, a study published in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science suggests that dogs receiving CBD supplements for an extended time period have below-average aggression compared to dogs that are not given CBD.
The study used survey data from a program called the Dog Aging Project (DAP) and associated the change in behavior with canines that had consistently consumed CBD for at least two years.
The research team also found that CBD use among canines tended to be higher in states with legalized medical cannabis. Dogs with dementia, osteoarthritis, cancer, epilepsy, hip dysplasia, clinical gastrointestinal disorders, and chronic diarrhea were more likely to use CBD compared to dogs without those conditions.
Said Maxwell C. K. Leung, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicologym and a cannabis researcher at Arizona State University, and a study co-author, “Medical cannabis is used for a number of human health conditions, such as osteoarthritis and epilepsy. Dogs also have similar health conditions, and we give CBD to our animals for the same reasons. I think this is an example of how we treat our companion animals as members of our family.”
TG Branfalt’s reporting on this story is first rate. To learn more, including some of the science behind the study, we urge you to read his article in the December 2, 2025 issue of Ganjapreneur.com.
https://ganjapreneur.com/study-dogs-given-cbd-have-below-average-aggression/?
Treating MS with Cannabis-Based Medicine
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative disease with a wide range of motor, sensory and psychiatric symptoms. Experts say nearly 1 million individuals in the U.S. have MS and an estimated 2.9 million people worldwide have the condition.
The condition is more common in women, with a ratio of about 3:1 compared to men and is most frequently diagnosed in individuals aged 20 to 40. MS symptoms are varied and can include numbness or tingling, vision problems, and fatigue, as well as muscle weakness or spasms, balance and coordination issues, pain, cognitive or emotional changes, and bladder and bowel problems, all of which can drastically impact an individual’s quality of life.
Because cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) have displayed promising therapeutic potential for managing pain, sleep and anxiety, researchers believed, further evaluation of CBMP treatment for MS was warranted.
To that end, a study by British researchers affiliated with Imperial College in London, England aimed to assess the efficacy and tolerability of cannabis-based medicinal products in the treatment of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) by investigating changes in MS-specific and general health-related patient-reported outcome measures and adverse events over a 24 month period.
The study included 203 patients who were enrolled in the United Kingdom Medical Cannabis Registry, of whom 47.29 percent (n=96) were female and 80.79 percent (n=164) had prior cannabis exposure.
Researchers noted improvements in quality of life measures among the subjects in categories such as general health, energy, health distress, pain, physical function, and physical role limitations at all follow-up times when compared to baseline measures.
Based on their findings, the research team concluded CBMP treatment over 24 months was associated with improvements in health-related quality of life and was well-tolerated in patients with MS. They did, however, state that future randomized controlled trials with more representative study populations are needed to establish causal relationships.
An article describing the study was published in the October 31, 2025 issue of the journal Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids. To read an abstract of the study, click on the following link.
CBD Spotlight
There may be good news for those who suffer from skin conditions, such as acne or atopic dermatitis (eczema). A new study indicates CBD may have the potential to aid in the treatment of a variety of skin conditions.
Also, that same study suggests that because of its skin moisturizing properties, there may be possible cosmetic benefits to using CBD and including it as an ingredient in cosmetic products.
The purpose of the review was to provide an overview of preclinical and clinical evidence of CBD being effective in the treatment of skin conditions. The study, conducted by two researchers affiliated with the School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of Galway, Galway City, Ireland, consisted of a literature search that was conducted using databases including PubMed and Google Scholar and search terms that included (‘cannabidiol’ OR ‘CBD’) AND ‘skin’, ‘acne’, ‘psoriasis’, ‘dermatitis’, and ‘wound healing’.
Studies were included if they were original research articles focused on CBD and skin conditions. Articles were excluded if they were not available in English or if the studies were not related to the theme of the review. Included articles dated from 2003 to 2024.
Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that CBD has a complex pharmacology with multiple molecular targets found in the skin and may have therapeutic potential for the treatment of a variety of skin conditions such as acne, psoriasis, and dermatitis, because of its anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and potential anti-pruritic (relief from itching) effects.
However, much of this evidence is preclinical or preliminary, with the need for further research and high-quality randomized controlled clinical trials indicated. There is also some limited evidence for the use of CBD in cosmetic skin care, with preclinical and clinical studies suggesting it has moisturizing properties and can protect against photoaging.
The study’s findings were published in an article that appeared in the November 2, 2025 issue of the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology. To read an abstract of the study, click on the following link.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.70527
Senior Cannabis Digest is compiled and edited by Joe Kohut and John Kohut. You can each them at joe.kohut@gmail.com and at 347-528-8753.