Welcome to Senior Cannabis Digest. This week we look at the down side to prohibition, tips on selecting the product that’s right for you, cannabis use and quality of life and more. Enjoy.
Cannabis Quote of the Week
Top takeaway: Cannabis prohibition may cause more harm than good.
“Cannabis is not harmless. Frequent use can be problematic for some people. High-potency products warrant particular attention, as do the risks to adolescents and to people predisposed to psychotic disorders. We should educate people honestly about those risks and discourage them from driving or operating dangerous machinery while impaired by cannabis.
But acknowledging those risks does not justify banning adults from using cannabis.
Prohibition carries risks of its own. It pushes consumers toward illicit markets, where products may have uncertain potency and contents. It exposes otherwise peaceful people to arrest and criminal penalties. And by reducing an enormously complicated subject to “don’t use drugs,” prohibition can impede the development of the knowledge and social norms that help people make safer choices.
We should judge legalization against the real-world alternative of prohibition, with its illicit markets, criminal penalties and unreliable product information.
Adults routinely make choices that involve risk. Some drink alcohol, some smoke tobacco and some participate in dangerous sports. Respecting their autonomy doesn’t require pretending those choices are harmless. It requires providing them with good information and allowing them to weigh the risks and benefits for themselves.
We should treat cannabis the same way.
A free society should be capable of learning to live with potentially risky substances without the government banning them” – Jeffrey A. Singer, MD
Dr. Singer practices surgery in Phoenix, Arizona and is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. His comments are taken from an op-ed he penned for Marijuana Moment.
In his editorial Singer states that a free society should be capable of learning to live with potentially risky substances without the government banning them. He notes that after Prohibition was repealed in 1933, Americans learned to live with legal alcohol. Knowledge, customs, and social norms evolved around its responsible use. We learned to distinguish drinking from drunkenness. We came to strongly disapprove of drinking and driving and of drinking on the job. People learned to recognize their own limits, and friends and families learned to recognize when someone’s drinking was becoming a problem.
He suggests cannabis may be undergoing a similar period of adjustment and as cannabis use becomes normalized, consumers can learn more about dosing, potency, frequency, impairment and their individual responses to the drug.
He also believes social norms around responsible use can develop as people gain experience with a substance that, for most of the past century, public policy treated simply as something no one should use.
To learn more, we urge you to read Dr. Singer’s op-ed in the August 25 issue of Marijuana Moment.net.
Notable Numbers
Top takeaway: The number of Americans who consume cannabis has increased.
There’s comforting news for mature individuals who consume cannabis. You are far from alone. The latest Gallup poll found that 17 percent of Americans said they smoke cannabis, including 15 percent of women and 18 percent of men.
The poll also revealed that smoking is not the only method of consumption employed by consumers. Fifteen percent of those polled indicated they consume cannabis edibles, including 17 percent of women and 12 percent of men.
TG Branfalt, reporting for Ganjapreneur, makes the point that the poll results showed the percentage of Americans who said they consume cannabis increased in 2026. In 2024, the number of Americans polled by Gallup who said they smoked cannabis fell to 13 percent but rose to 14 percent in 2025.
Branfalt also noted that the Gallup research team found that among respondents 50- to 64-years old, 10 percent said they smoked cannabis, while 12 percent said they consumed cannabis edibles. The lowest level of cannabis smokers and edible consumers were 65-and-older (5 percent and 7 percent, respectively).
In addition, Branfalt reports in his article that, in general, the poll found Americans about evenly split on the effect of cannabis on most consumers, with 47 percent saying it has a very (9 percent) or somewhat (38 percent) positive effect, and 46 percent saying it has a very (16 percent) or somewhat (30 percent) negative effect.
As always, Branfalt’s reporting is crisp and on point. To learn more, we suggest reading his article in the August 27, 2026 issue of Ganjapreneur.com.
ganjapreneur.com/gallup-17-of-americans-smoke-cannabis-15-consume-edibles/?
Dispensary Tips
Top takeaway: Consumers should select products based on the experience they hope to achieve.
When shopping for cannabis, mature consumers and others are likely to have more success if they focus on the effect they want to achieve than merely making a selection based on a brand or the name of a popular strain.
That’s the word from John G., a Product Specialist at Canopy Crossroad, a licensed cannabis dispensary in Red Bank, New Jersey. In a recent article in the online publication Tap into RedBank, he offered the opinion that asking a bud tender for a particular strain – such as White Widow – should be treated as a starting point for a discussion, not as a guarantee the strain will help you achieve the result you desire.
Said John G., “Cannabis is personal. The same strain can hit two people very differently. Dosage, tolerance, setting and consumption method all play a significant role in someone’s overall experience.”
According to the staff at Canopy Crossroad who contributed to the article in Tap Into Red Bank, instead of asking a budtender, “Is this an indica or sativa?” consumers should start by asking themselves “What kind of experience am I looking for?”
For instance, someone might be looking to relax without necessarily becoming sleepy, remain social, feel mentally engaged or avoid feeling overly stimulated. Sharing such goals with dispensary staff can give a knowledgeable team member more useful information than a strain name alone and help them help a consumer make a more informed selection.
The staff at Canopy Crossroad also suggest consumers focus on product format, cannabinoid and terpene information, potency, dose and tolerance, in addition to the experience they are looking for, when purchasing a product.
Canopy Crossroad is an independent, women-owned licensed cannabis dispensary in Red Bank, New Jersey. To learn more, we suggest reading the article in the August 21, 2026 issue of Tap into Red Bank.net.
Cannabis News and Notes
Top takeaway: Using medical cannabis may help individuals achieve “sleep satisfaction.”
There may be good news for those seeking a better quality of life and a more satisfying night’s sleep. According to a team of Brazilian researchers, the use of full-spectrum cannabis oil is associated with “favorable perceived quality of life and sleep satisfaction” among medical marijuana patients. Higher concentrations and longer treatments also seemed to produce “higher odds of better outcomes.”
So says Tom Angell in a recent article for Marijuana Moment. Angell writes that researchers at State University of Montes Claros conducted a cross-sectional observational survey involving 71 medical patients enrolled in Brazil’s medical marijuana program.
Respondents included people who use marijuana for psychological conditions (37 percent), neurological disorders (21 percent) and chronic musculoskeletal pain (11 percent) that can contribute to sleep issues.
Angell noted that the study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology, found that the use of cannabis oil with a 3:1 THC-to-CBD ratio was linked to “positive correlations” between the “psychological domains of quality of life and sleep satisfaction.”
Wrote the research team in the study, “In a real-world clinical context, supervised use of full-spectrum medical Cannabis oil was associated with favorable patient-reported perceptions of quality of life and sleep, consistent with perceived effectiveness.”
They also made the point that higher cannabis oil concentrations and longer treatment durations were associated with “higher odds of better outcomes.” They also noted that the study findings are “consistent with the hypothesis that cannabinoid interventions may influence wellbeing through direct and indirect pathways (sleep, relaxation, anxiety reduction, and symptom modulation), beyond the primary control of a target symptom.
To learn more, we suggest reading Tom Angell’s article in the August 19, 2026 issue of Marijuana Moment.net.
Senior Cannabis Digest is compiled and edited by Joe Kohut and John Kohut. You can reach them at Joe.kohut@gmail.com and at 347-528-8753.