It's the 10th anniversary of Dr. Sanjay Gupta's "Weed" specials on CNN. It all started in 2013 when Gupta admitted he was wrong about marijuana and started to promote pot in a series of one-hour reports. His original focus was CBD and child seizure sufferer Charlotte Figi, who passed away in 2020. He's since covered how cannabis (including THC) can benefit patients with different conditions such as autisim. His latest program – Weed 7: A Senior Moment – concentrates on cannabis uses among the elderly.
Gupta travels to Florida, California and Israel to find out why septuagenarians and older are embracing weed and tossing away their pills. Can it help with dementia and Alzheimer's? Apparently so. Even the hardline head of NIDA, Dr. Nora Volkow, calls Israel's advances in cannabis research "a good model."
Dr. Melanie Bone, who works with the aging in West Palm Beach, says cannabis "can make us age moe gracefully and confortabl. Gupta concludes, it's "a better quality of life for seniors. Marijuana seems to have given them that."
In a press release, he notes:
“Over the last decade reporting on medical marijuana, time and time again, what has surprised me the most is the optimism, the possibility and the impact that carefully controlled cannabis can have, even on seniors, for a better quality of life."
In 2016, CBS News reported the "fastest growing demographic reporting marijuana use in the United States is those adults ages 55 and older."
Watch Weed 7 on Demand.
More "Weed" Episodes
Weed 3: The Marijuana Revolution
