Most NYC Seniors Who Use Cannabis Are Doing It to Get High, and That's Fine

The Woodstock generation is back at it, and this time it's legal. A new study finds that most New York City seniors who use cannabis aren't chasing a medical benefit. They're using it to get high, on purpose, and enjoying it.

Researchers at NYU Langone surveyed 315 New Yorkers aged 65 and up. About 60% of the seniors who use cannabis said they do it for recreational reasons rather than medical ones. And they're not shy about it. Around 11% reported using cannabis within the past 24 hours. This is a demographic most people still picture reaching for a heating pad, not a vape.

A generation coming home to weed

The trend isn't limited to New York, and it's moving fast. Cannabis use among Americans 65 and older jumped nearly 46% between 2021 and 2023. A separate NYU study published in JAMA Internal Medicine put past-month use among that age group at 7% in 2023, up from under 5% just two years earlier. Zoom out further and the shift is staggering. Back in 2007, only 0.4% of seniors reported using cannabis in the past year. By 2022, that figure had climbed to roughly 8%.

The growth is sharpest in a group that might surprise you. It's not stereotypical stoners. The fastest-rising users are affluent seniors earning over $75,000 a year, college graduates, women, and married couples. In other words, comfortable retirees who now have the time, the money, and the legal access to enjoy a product many of them first tried decades ago.

That history shows up on the dispensary floor. Budtenders on Manhattan's Upper West Side say some of their most loyal regulars are in their 70s, 80s, and even 90s, and plenty of them mention having been at Woodstock. One shopper reportedly in his 90s comes in and buys around ten of the strongest vapes in the case at a time.

This article is based on a New York Post report on an NYU Langone study, with supporting data from NYU research published in JAMA Internal Medicine and additional context from Axios and Hoodline. Read the original coverage at nypost.com.

Our take

The framing on the original headline deserves a side-eye. "Simply to get high," as if a 75-year-old choosing to relax with a legal product is some kind of scandal. It isn't. Adults are allowed to enjoy cannabis for no reason other than that they like it, and a retiree lighting up on a Tuesday needs to justify it to exactly no one. The whole "but is it medical?" hand-wringing misses that the line between medical and recreational was always blurry.

A senior who uses weed to unwind, sleep better, laugh at a movie, and feel good in their own skin is improving their quality of life whether a researcher files that under medicine or fun. Good for them. This is what the end of stigma looks like, and it's the Woodstock generation getting the last laugh on decades of prohibition propaganda.

But we're not going to pull a full victory lap, because there's a real story underneath the feel-good one. That 90-something buying ten of the strongest vapes in the shop is not a punchline. It's a red flag about a support system that doesn't exist. Older bodies process cannabis differently, high-potency products hit harder than the flower these folks remember from 1969, and weed can interact badly with the blood thinners, heart meds, and other prescriptions a lot of seniors are on. Other research already shows a chunk of older users are driving while high and that doctors feel unequipped to advise them.

So here's the honest read. Seniors flocking to legal cannabis is a genuinely good thing and a sign the culture finally grew up. The problem is that the medical establishment and the dispensary counter have both been slow to meet them there with real guidance on dosing, potency, and drug interactions. The demand arrived faster than the education did. Celebrate freedom, absolutely. Then build the guardrails these customers actually deserve.