Cannabis for Seniors - Softcover

Potter Ph.D., Beverly A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1579512429 ISBN 13: 9781579512422

Publisher: Ronin Publishing, 2017

Synopsis

CANNABIS FOR SENIORS is for seniors who are curious about cannabis and how they might use it to better their lives.

CANNABIS FOR SENIORS reviews research regarding the health effects of cannabis and the effectiveness of various strains for managing specific health conditions and improving quality of life.

CANNABIS FOR SENIORS debunks myths and discusses concerns that seniors may have about cannabis use. Docpotter describes methods of using cannabis, explaining how smoking, eating, and topicals users.

CANNABIS FOR SENIORS discusses ways seniors can use cannabis to manage various health concerns, one of which is the widespread use of powerful, potentially dangerous, addictive pharmaceutical medications. Docpotter explains how cannabis can help reduce, even avoid use of opioids, while ameliorating health conditions commonly experience including, insomnia, depression, Alzheimer’s Disease, pain, stress and anxiety, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, stroke and others. CANNABIS FOR SENIORS explains the research and anecdotal evidence supporting use of medical cannabis to enable seniors to better decide if they want to try using cannabis to soothe aliments.

CANNABIS FOR SENIORS discusses how using cannabis enlivens mood and encourages conviviality to facilitate socializing. Research shows that seniors who have positive interactions with friends, family members and community live longer, happier and healthier lives.

Seniors new to cannabis or an experienced user, both, will find much useful information in CANNABIS FOR SENIORS. Friends and relatives of seniors as well as caretakers and practitioners working with seniors will find it a valuable resource and interesting read. (Beverly A Potter, PhD)

About this title

About the Author:

Beverly A. Potter, PhD (Docpotter) earned her doctorate in counseling psychology from Stanford University and her masters in vocational rehabilitation counseling from San Francisco State University. She is a corporate trainer, public speaker and has authored a number of books on health and workplace issues like overcoming job burnout, managing yourself for excellence, high performance goal setting, mediating conflict, drug testing, self healing, cooking with cannabis, and more. Her website―docpotter.com―is pack with useful information.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Why Cannabis for Seniors?
Baby boomers are turning 65 to become “Seniors” at an incredible rate of 10,000 each day. The percent of American aged 65 or older will grow to 18 percent by 2030 and it projected that the senior citizens population will balloon to 89 million by 2050. And if you’ve made it to 65, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts that you will live another 19.3 years.

Baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, now becoming “Senior Boomers” will dramatically change the business and lifestyle landscape. Senior boomers are predicted to stay in the workforce longer than their parents did, both because they need the money and they’re not ready to leave behind fulfilling careers. When they finally do retire, their need for health care and assisted living is predicted to alter what retirement living arrangements look like for generations to come.

Special Issues
Seniors have special issues the most prominent of which is simple aging. The body wears out. Seniors have all kinds of aches like arthritis, stiff backs, knees, and hips, and muscle spasm. As it turns out cannabis is particularly soothing to muscles and ligaments.

Doctors readily prescribed strong narcotics―that are addicting, to seniors to ease these pains and do little monitoring of use―making it easy for seniors to slide into dependency without realizing it. It is not uncommon for seniors to be taking 8 to 10 pills, even more daily. Some report taking more than 20 pills a day!

It is easy for seniors become isolated. Their spouse may have died and their kids grown. They may be retired and no longer going to a work place every day to interact with co-workers. It is harder to meet new people as a senior. Just getting out and going places by oneself can be a chore; whereas when back in college when you just stepped out the door in the dorm to fall in with other kids going somewhere. Seniors are not likely to go to a hang out bar, especially alone. With isolation comes feeling lonely and hopeless to be able to change it. Possible anxiety and worrying about one’s situation and health and future.

Another frequent issue is getting a good night sleep. Having difficulty sleeping well seems to come with aging. Here, again doctors tend to over prescribe sleeping meds, which when used nightly can lead to dependency.

Cannabis has properties and benefit that seniors can draw upon for aid in these issues and to reduce the amount of strong narcotics and substitute the more benign cannabis therapeutics.

Learning to Use Cannabis
Seniors have had varying degrees of experience with cannabis. Many are regular users. Others had a few experiences in college or have been at parties where joints were passed that they may have tried. Others have not had direct experience, but almost all seniors have seen movies or read books wherein marijuana―pot―was used and enjoyed.

You may have heard that you “must learn to get high”. Or heard someone say something like, “I tried it a few times and nothing happened.” Sociologist Howard Becker’s research shows that when we ingest a drug we have to be taught to recognize the effects. For marijuana the effects usually include heightened senses, food cravings, and sometimes feelings of anxiety, that could progress to paranoia. The first few times we may ignore the effects or get frightened by them―as part of “learning” to use marijuana.

Drinking alcohol is common in our world. But we’re not born knowing how to “drink”. We’ve all experienced drinking too much and getting the “whirlies” or stumbling around, even passing out. In these early experiences we learned the feelings and effects of alcohol―what to expect and how to handle it. For some such early “training” is the first step in becoming a wine connoisseur, which is a very refined “taste”.

Learning to Use Cannabis Therapeutics
Learning to use cannabis therapeutically begins with you―an individual, a unique human. It is important to notice how you feel before using cannabis―as a baseline for comparison to how you feel after employing a particular “therapeutic” use. The emphasis here is on cannabis as therapeutic rather than cannabis as a “medicine”. Synonyms of therapeutic include healing, curative, remedial, medicinal, restorative, salubrious, health-giving, tonic, reparative, corrective, beneficial, good, salutary.

When speaking of cannabis many often make a distinction between “recreational” and “medical” cannabis. The premise here is that is a false distinction. Recreational = re-creational, which therapeutic. Having fun is beneficial and therapeutic. While “passing a joint” is considered as recreational, conviviality and laughing with friends is therapeutic. (Docpotter)

About this edition

• Publisher: Ronin Publishing
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1579512429
• ISBN 13: 9781579512422
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200