It’s not too surprising when you think about it:
- Elderly people who want to use cannabis for health reasons aren’t particularly enticed by smoking, making edibles more desirable.
- Vaporizers are increasingly common among younger people and a somewhat healthier alternative to smoking.
- Long-time users who want to experience a stronger sensation will get more out of concentrates.
- Businesses can turn a bad crop into a useful product via the concentrate-making process.
I agree. As a medical cannabis pharmacist, convincing older patients to even use an extraction vape pen is a very hard sell. They feel awkward using it, they feel their friends and family will think poorly of them, and they feel they’re somehow being a bad person.
Oral and sublingual dosing was easier for them to try because sublingual although it is relatively short-acting, is very discreet and oral formulations last 8-12 hours and can be dosed 2-4 times daily in private.
In one consult, I slowly convinced a 93 year old woman who played double-bridge with her friends at her care facility to use a vape pen for her pain but only with painstaking care.
In addition, it can be incredibly difficult to convince care facilities to allow patients to dose themselves. I did an in-service at a memory care facility for one of my patients and trained the staff on how to use the devices and medication and they agreed to allow her to self-dose.
I think baby-boomers are going to want medical cannabis more though as they age and shift away from opiates for pain control.
Ethan Carruthers
THC acid can crystalize easily by forming a salt. That is how many drugs form stable dry states by acid crystalization. However, high concentration THCa I don’t think it is as therapeutically useful as mixed extracts because it’s not just THC that is providing the therapeutic effects. If pure THC is all you want, that is what synthetic Marinol is.
I think the other cannabinoids and terpenes are also therapeutically interesting, especially in combination with THC.
Ethan