Easier Access to Pot May Revolutionize Health Care for Seniors (2024)

Almost 80,000 Americans will turn 65 this week. That's not just a lot—it's record breaking.

Over the next four years, more people in the United States will turn 65 annually than ever before—representing the biggest surge in retirement-age Americans in history. While this colossal uptick will see 4.1 million Americans enter their golden years by the end of 2027, it will also see a massive jump in demand for advanced medical care and enrollments in already-strained programs like Medicare.

To suggest this could get messy is an understatement. As the "peak 65" population unleashes a tidal wave across our healthcare systems, we need to radically rethink the senior healthcare landscape—and we need to do it fast. The Drug Enforcement Agency's recent actions may crystallize that opportunity sooner than later.

This month, the Biden administration announced that it's moving to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug. Almost all the commentary around that announcement focused on President Biden securing the "youth vote" for his reelection. What about the over 65 vote? These voters turn out more regularly in national elections, and they badly need the health care system to turn out for them. By rescheduling marijuana, we can incorporate medical cannabis into the comprehensive care of older Americans—providing an alternative to traditional prescription painkillers and reducing soaring health care costs currently saddling millions of seniors.

Seniors are already the fastest growing group of cannabis users in the United States, and many are already using cannabis as a transformative solution for age-related conditions like chronic pain, anxiety, insomnia, depression, nausea from cancer treatment, and even neurodegenerative disorders like dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

At the same time, more than half of today's Medicare population are on Medicare Advantage plans—millions of whom are facing cuts in benefits amidst rising health care costs and other pressures. Decision makers know this and are simultaneously working overtime to grapple with surging costs for prescription drugs, well aware that the current system is not equipped to handle an unprecedented influx of Americans counting down the days until their Medicare enrollment.

We need a fundamental overhaul of the senior health care landscape. Formally integrating medical cannabis into senior health programs could profoundly transform senior care.

Seniors have the highest health care costs and rates of hospital utilization, and nearly one-third take five or more pharmaceuticals every day. As a result, too many seniors are saddled with high costs and low efficacy rates, which medical cannabis wholly side steps.

In a study conducted at a senior-living facility in Florida where medical cannabis was administered by health care professionals, more than 80 percent of participants showed a positive impact and nearly three-quarters said their cannabis was more cost-effective than their prescription drugs—which is on par with what other studies have found.

Rescheduling marijuana may boost the youth vote, but it could move mountains with 65-plus voters—especially if integrated into existing programs like Medicare Advantage, providing millions for the first time with life-changing alternative therapies at a fraction of the cost of traditional pharmaceutical drugs.

In fact, in states where marijuana is legal, doctors prescribed an average of 1,826 fewer daily doses of painkillers per year to patients enrolled in Medicare Part D—which would result in a cost savings of up to $500 million per year if medical marijuana access was legal nationwide.

The disruptive potential of medical cannabis can't be understated. Yet the path to reach that potential is peppered with hurdles.

While the DEA is in the process of rescheduling marijuana, integrating medical cannabis into senior health care programs like Medicare Advantage hinges on developing new, in-depth research, and generating important data before the federal government permits coverage.

With the senior population growing rapidly every day, the fastest pathway to integrating medical cannabis into 65-plus health care requires establishing a demonstration program in a state that allows for medical cannabis—to begin research into cannabis-based therapies and develope protocols for the safe and effective use of these therapies.

A demonstration could implement a systematic approach through a health care payer-provider system such as Medicare Advantage to deepen valuable insights and gather real-world data over the next several months on the treatment diagnosis, usage patterns, dosing protocols, and efficacy of medical cannabis among beneficiaries aged 65 and older. That data would further contribute to widescale delivery and learning and be used to develop clinical guidance, provide education and support to clinical providers, and collect anecdotal data from patients using medical cannabis.

This demonstration is the seed that will sprout potential not only to disrupt the current medical cannabis system but revolutionize the senior healthcare landscape.

But the clock is ticking and the need for health care transformation is now. Amid soaringcosts and a growing desire to shift away from traditional pharmaceuticals, medical cannabis is poised to usher in that transformation.

Howard Kessler is an entrepreneur, an active philanthropist, the founder of the Kessler Group, and the founder of the Commonwealth Project, a compassionate initiative focused on integrating medical cannabis into mainstream health care for seniors. Kessler has been working for more than five years to promote his vision of improving the quality and lives of seniors.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.