People over the age of 65 are the fastest-growing segment of the legal cannabis marketplace, running counter to prohibitionist claims about a marijuana industry that’s preying on children.

One in 30 Senior Citizens Are Toking Monthly

Data from the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health show that 3.38% of the nation’s seniors had used marijuana at least once in the past 30 days.

That same survey in 2005 showed just 0.35% of people 65 and older had used marijuana monthly. This means that use among seniors has increased almost tenfold. I’m using population-adjusted rates to compare across years; obviously, in terms of raw numbers, the increase is even greater, owing to population increases over time.

Legalization—and the resulting safe access to marijuana—seems to be the key factor leading to the increase. Senior use had only doubled by 2011, prior to marijuana legalization beginning in Washington and Colorado in 2012. By 2016, senior use had again more than doubled, and it doubled again by 2019.

In fact, the younger the age cohort, the less their marijuana use has increased since 2005. Why 2005? It’s the earliest year of the NSDUH survey with a consistent age category I can use to drill down on older marijuana users. It’s also prior to the failed 2006 campaigns in Colorado and Nevada to legalize marijuana and well before California’s failed Prop 19 in 2010 that energized the national discussion around legalization.

Use by people aged 50–64 has nearly quadrupled, for ages 35–49 it’s up about two-and-a-half times, and for ages 26–34, it’s more than doubled, as one might expect when adults can safely shop for legal marijuana.

Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Children?!

It’s the younger people who cannot access those legal marijuana stores who have seen the smallest increases in monthly marijuana use. Use among college-aged people between 18–24, many of whom cannot legally access marijuana, is up a little over a third. That could be because this age group has the greatest absolute use rate of all ages surveyed, with a sliver over 23% of all 18–24-year-olds consuming cannabis monthly—most everybody that age who wanted to smoke marijuana already was.

For the children, those aged 12–17, use is up by 11% in 2019 compared to 2005. However, it’s important to note that teen use had been higher in 2010 and 2011, and was actually below 2005 rates for the three years prior to 2019.

In terms of relative rates, someone aged 12–17 is about as likely to be a marijuana smoker (7.59%) as someone over the age of 35 (8.11%). In terms of raw numbers, there are about as many senior marijuana smokers (1.8 million) as underaged teenagers (1.9 million).

Rate of Marijuana Use by Age Group, 2005–2019