Nearly 10% of Americans 60 and older have used marijuana, according to data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health. Many use marijuana to help with pain or aid sleep. And the fact that marijuana is legal in several states, including Arizona, makes it all the more accessible.
"So, I want to start by saying I never thought that I would be giving an interview and talking about the dangers of marijuana," said Dr. Theresa Costales, a psychiatrist and the Arizona Medical Director for Connections Health Solutions, a crisis response center. "The most surprising uptick that we have seen, that I've seen anecdotally at our crisis centers, is older adults, so maybe even middle aged, who post marijuana becoming legal in Arizona are becoming psychotic."
In part because of the high concentration of THC in some of the edible products out there like gummies.
"It seems very harmless but then we're seeing these adults who have never had mental illness before using these edibles and maybe even starting to use it kind of regularly, ‘I'm going to take a gummy before bed every night so I can get to sleep,’ and becoming psychotic," she said.
She says what they’re seeing with the THC-induced psychosis is paranoia, including paranoid delusions.
