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00:00 I never thought I would be taken through a dispensary by a 94-year-old.
00:07 Who else would take you?
00:12 Sometimes my reporting takes me to places I truly never would have expected.
00:17 A few months ago, while working on a new documentary, I paid a visit to a medical cannabis dispensary
00:22 in Palm Beach, Florida, a place packed with seniors.
00:26 And that's where I met 94-year-old Ken.
00:29 Only old enough to be my grandfather.
00:31 At the dispensary, I kind of eavesdropped in on his conversation with the bud tender.
00:37 So just check that.
00:38 How much THC and how much CBD?
00:39 Oh yeah, we have these.
00:40 The pomegranate, CBN and THC.
00:41 Okay, it's the same strength?
00:42 Yes, 10 milligrams.
00:43 Okay, and how much is it?
00:44 These are 30.
00:45 30, and the special price?
00:46 You get your wisdom discount, and you can use points.
00:47 Right.
00:48 By the way, did you catch that?
00:49 A wisdom discount.
01:01 Not senior savings, not retirement age benefit.
01:05 A wisdom discount.
01:06 Which by the way, is given to anyone there over the age of 55.
01:10 I love that.
01:12 And so did Ken.
01:13 The first time you ever walked into a dispensary, what was that like for you?
01:18 It seemed mostly the dispensaries are the same.
01:21 You come in, you see a receptionist, they put your card in, somebody comes out to escort
01:30 you inside to a cash register, and they have the stuff for you.
01:35 Was it confusing at all?
01:38 No, it was simple.
01:41 So why is Ken here?
01:43 Why is he at a cannabis dispensary?
01:45 Well, it's because his doctor prescribed him cannabis to help him sleep.
01:50 Just think about that simple thing and how much change that reflects.
01:53 A 94-year-old being prescribed marijuana as a medicine for sleep.
01:58 Now to be clear, Ken, who lived through significant stigma around cannabis, wasn't totally sold
02:04 on the idea at first.
02:07 I said, "I really don't want to smoke it.
02:10 I didn't know what it offered.
02:12 Not that I would become a junkie, but is there a downside?"
02:15 And I didn't want to do that.
02:17 But the thing is this, he had tried all sorts of medications, and now Ken says cannabis
02:23 is one of the only medications he's ever tried for sleep that actually works.
02:28 And I don't buy it for smoking.
02:31 I don't buy it to get high.
02:33 It helps me go to sleep.
02:37 As you may know, I've been reporting on cannabis as a medicine for more than a decade now.
02:41 And it's fair to say I have learned a lot, and my thinking has evolved, even changed,
02:46 on the topic.
02:47 I just finished my seventh documentary.
02:49 It's called Weed 7, A Senior Moment.
02:52 Now no doubt when I started filming the documentary, Ken, a man nearly 100 years old, wasn't the
02:59 typical patient I thought of as using medical marijuana.
03:03 So often, I, like a lot of you probably, thought of this as a younger person's drug.
03:08 My parents, for example, were born a few decades after Ken, and I couldn't imagine them trying
03:13 it.
03:14 But the reality is cannabis use is on the rise among older adults, both recreationally
03:20 and medicinally.
03:21 In fact, seniors now make up the fastest growing population of cannabis users in the United
03:26 States.
03:27 On today's episode, I'm going to ask an expert in geriatric psychiatry what exactly is behind
03:33 this trend, and how he hopes medical cannabis might be able to alleviate what I have come
03:38 to call the nuisances of aging.
03:41 Everything from insomnia and pain to depression and anxiety, even certain symptoms of dementia.
03:46 We're going to talk about what we really know and what we really don't know about some of
03:52 the risks and the rewards of using cannabis.
03:54 And we're going to highlight some of the precautions folks of any age should take.
03:59 I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and this is Chasing Life.
04:12 Back in 2017, Dr. Aaron Greenstein was in residency training to become a psychiatrist
04:17 when he noticed a trend that surprised him.
04:21 I noticed that a lot of the veterans who were seeking mental health care there were cannabis
04:26 users.
04:28 Many VA patients lean on the older end, these are Vietnam era, Korea War era people, and
04:34 they swear by cannabis.
04:35 They swear by its positive impact on their day to day life.
04:39 Now Aaron was training at Harvard in Boston and medical cannabis was legal in the state
04:44 of Massachusetts.
04:46 But Dr. Greenstein says from a medical perspective, he ran into a familiar problem, lack of data,
04:53 which meant most people were flying blind, even doctors themselves.
04:57 I had no information really to inform my discussions even.
05:01 So it's not like, oh, I'm going to give them advice and tell them what strains to use.
05:03 I didn't have anything to tell them clinically, like, oh, this is bad for you, this is good
05:06 for you.
05:07 This is how much you should be using.
05:09 You should not be using this formulation.
05:10 I had none of that information.
05:14 And that is what inspired Dr. Greenstein to do his own research on medical cannabis in
05:19 the elderly.
05:20 And while he says there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered, the bottom
05:25 line is that he now believes the substance can be useful, and it's highly promising for
05:30 some patients.
05:31 Today, Aaron is a licensed geriatric psychiatrist in Denver, Colorado.
05:37 That means he helps older patients navigate their mental health, which frankly is something
05:42 that is too often ignored.
05:43 In fact, there simply aren't enough doctors like him out there.
05:48 According to a 2018 study from the University of Michigan, there are around 1,200 geriatric
05:53 psychiatrists in the country.
05:55 Meanwhile, our nation's senior population is about 55.7 million and growing.
06:01 I mean, there's just a huge shortage in geriatrics.
06:04 So the need is there, and partially because there's a huge shortage.
06:07 The reason that this population really needs specialized care is because as people age,
06:12 they become more frail, their metabolism slows, they tend to have more medical problems.
06:17 And then of course, for another subset of the population, there's also changes to their
06:21 brain.
06:22 So when you look at someone's brain when they're 20 versus when they're 80, their brain is
06:25 probably smaller, it probably has some chronic inflammation, and those things certainly contribute
06:29 to mental health.
06:30 So we look at people's mental health through a completely different lens.
06:35 And it's also treating mental health in the setting of medical complexity.
06:40 And increasingly, one of the options to help people who need it is cannabis.
06:45 For Ken, who I introduced you to earlier, it was his specific lack of sleep that was
06:50 really driving his poor mental health.
06:52 And cannabis, as it turns out, helped him with both.
06:56 The lack of another word, I don't run out of gas.
07:00 I get a decent night's sleep.
07:02 It could be six hours, seven hours, eight hours.
07:06 That's fine for me.
07:08 I really wanted to dig into this with him to understand, does it help you go to sleep?
07:14 Does it help you stay asleep?
07:15 Like, what is it about cannabis and sleep for you?
07:19 Why is it something that you find useful and attractive and helpful?
07:24 And he said something interesting, which is that when he wasn't taking cannabis, sometimes
07:29 he would wake up in the middle of the night.
07:31 And when you're a senior, someone in his 90s in this case, where does the mind go when
07:36 you start to wake up in the middle of the night?
07:38 And where it went for him, super nice guy, successful guy in his life, but the mind went
07:43 to could have, would have, should have.
07:46 Here's what I could have done with my life.
07:47 Here's what I should have done with my life.
07:49 Here's what I would have done with my life.
07:51 And it was anxiety provoking.
07:53 I would have a lot of could have, should have, would has.
07:56 I would get up.
07:57 I should have done that when I was 20.
08:00 Why didn't I go to a better school?
08:03 Why didn't I do this?
08:05 So in not sleeping, you really do a lot of damage to yourself.
08:09 That was how the cannabis was helping him.
08:12 It was giving him sleep, but it was also taking him away from the could have, would have,
08:16 should has of life, which I just found really interesting.
08:19 I love that anecdote.
08:20 That's really fascinating.
08:21 And this is also, by the way, why like clinically it's really important to take a really good
08:26 history, right?
08:27 Because if somebody just came to me and said, Oh, I use cannabis daily for sleep and I didn't
08:31 get into why they're actually using it and all of the benefits that it has for them,
08:34 you know, I'm just as a physician, I'm like, Oh, is this doing more harm?
08:37 Is this doing harm?
08:38 Or is this doing benefit?
08:39 And how should I counsel them?
08:40 And how should I do motivational interviewing to get them to stop using it?
08:43 So, you know, that's somebody who is getting far more benefit from cannabis than from any
08:48 pharmaceutical product.
08:49 I mean, every pharmaceutical sleep aid comes with a whole set of downsides.
08:54 And none of them come with an indication that it can help relieve existential distress of
08:58 aging at 4am.
09:00 Right.
09:01 I had the same reaction to that.
09:04 Like I just needed to sit back and reflect on what he said.
09:08 It was powerful to me because the existential questions, maybe they, by their very nature
09:15 of the age of the people who we're talking about, they experience existential questions
09:20 more.
09:21 The time that they have to, to address some of the things in their life they wish they
09:26 addressed, that time is running out and they're aware of that.
09:30 So how not to lapse into what can become an existential crisis or even just an existential
09:35 anxiety I thought was super interesting.
09:39 That's really powerful too.
09:40 I mean, I just imagine the level of distress from that is massive because you have this
09:45 short window of time, you probably have some physical limitations, maybe cognitive limitations
09:48 and you're looking back with regret.
09:50 So if there's a way to alleviate that and help people pass through that without having
09:55 to go through that struggle, like power to them.
09:59 I would say a lot of when I found out that a lot of people were using cannabis, I really
10:02 was more interested in why they were using it instead of giving them the slap on the
10:07 hand that I probably should have given them based on training at that point in time.
10:14 So I was just really interested.
10:15 I would do these detailed histories just to learn more about why they're actually doing
10:17 it and when they're using it and what formulations and what it's doing for them and why they're
10:22 spending so much of their social security check on it.
10:25 To me, when somebody is investing so much effort and time and money into something,
10:29 there's a good reason for it.
10:30 It's not usually just that it's a fun hobby.
10:35 Why is it that your training would have sort of, you know, made you want to slap them on
10:40 the hands?
10:42 Is there a concern about addiction?
10:45 I mean, I think the gateway sort of hypothesis has been pretty adequately addressed.
10:50 I mean, what is it?
10:52 What would your professor say to you?
10:53 Maybe you've talked to your professors about this, but what would they say about this work
10:56 that you've done in cannabis and seniors?
10:58 Well, first of all, I think there's a paradigm shift.
11:00 I don't blame my attendings and professors for preaching against cannabis.
11:05 I mean, this is a DEA Schedule 1 substance, highly stigmatized for many decades, and we
11:10 really never had a good population sample of, you know, what this stuff actually does
11:14 to people when it's used.
11:17 And we also don't have good information on like how it impacts different age subsets.
11:20 Like I would say that like in younger people, I heavily discourage cannabis use because
11:25 we know that persistent cannabis use in younger people for recreational purposes will lower
11:29 IQ for many people and, you know, is deeply impactful, especially on teenagers.
11:34 I mean, it's very well established that it is not a safe substance for younger people.
11:38 Now as people age, it's a different story, right?
11:39 If they're using this primarily for medical reasons to deal with insomnia, to deal with
11:44 chronic pain, to deal with muscle spasms, even to deal with mental health issues, like
11:48 that is a different conversation because these people are more likely to use it responsibly.
11:54 They're less likely to, you know, abuse it, frankly, and they're using it for something
11:58 that is not being addressed by our healthcare system.
12:01 So I think we, you know, I'm trying not to look at this as a black and white issue.
12:05 And I'd say that yes, there are some people who do, but I think a more nuanced view of
12:08 this has formed over time, especially since I started thinking about it.
12:14 If someone is thinking, look, I think there might be some virtue in me trying cannabis
12:21 as a senior for some of the things you've talked about, the nuisances of aging, call
12:26 them, sleep, pain, mood.
12:30 How would they even begin?
12:31 Because again, it's a schedule one substance.
12:33 They don't know anything like what strains to take, how much to take, how to take it.
12:39 Is there a way for people to do this in a responsible way?
12:44 I think that's a really challenging question.
12:45 It's probably the question.
12:46 And at this point, you know, responsibility is on that person, frankly, because we don't
12:51 have dosing guidelines.
12:52 We don't have formulation guidelines.
12:54 We don't have FDA approved indications.
12:55 We really don't have that much information.
12:58 So I mean, just personally, what do I say when somebody comes in and says, I want to
13:01 try cannabis, you know, for my sleep, I have not been able to sleep.
13:04 I've been on every hypnotic drug and every other pharmaceutical.
13:07 I'm sick of it.
13:08 So I mean, I'll first of all, talk to them about, you know, you're on these medications
13:12 for your a fib and your other problems.
13:14 Like let's first of all, make sure that you're not going to have a drug interaction that
13:17 will end up causing you more harm than benefit.
13:20 Like let's talk about your mobility.
13:21 Do you have mobility problems?
13:23 Is using cannabis going to impact your mobility further?
13:26 Are you driving still?
13:27 You know, let's talk about how this fits into the bigger picture of your life.
13:31 And then, you know, once all those boxes have been checked, if it's if the person has taken
13:35 all the risks and still thinks there's a potential benefit, I still don't have an answer for
13:39 them at that point.
13:40 I mean, at that point, I say to them, like, you know, do what you do with pharmaceuticals.
13:44 We go low and slow with the elderly, low doses, low titration, and don't take any big risks
13:49 and talk to somebody who knows what they're talking about, which is typically somebody
13:52 who works at a medical dispensary, because I don't have a nuanced nuanced enough knowledge.
13:55 And frankly, we actually don't even know what's in a lot of these compounds.
13:59 Like, you know, when when you say that that guy in Florida had these incredible benefits,
14:03 you know, he helped him sleep that helped him deal with his existential distress.
14:06 Okay, we can assume that, you know, it's THC, and maybe some CBD that's doing that.
14:10 But the reality is, there's 150 over 150 cat cannabinoids in this stuff.
14:15 And there's another 500 compounds that we don't know anything about.
14:17 And it's possible that it's one of those compounds that's actually, you know, modulating the
14:21 part of his brain that's driving this existential distress and alleviating that.
14:25 So, you know, it's hard for me to make any recommendations without us actually understanding
14:28 what this stuff is and what it's made of and what the different chemicals are actually
14:32 doing.
14:33 We just don't know at this point.
14:34 I thought a lot about my own parents throughout this discussion.
14:39 If they had asked me, would I recommend cannabis for their so-called nuisances of aging?
14:44 Yeah, probably, especially compared to the things they are too often prescribed.
14:50 Pain pills, sleeping meds, antidepressants.
14:53 In fact, after the break, Dr. Greenstein is going to reveal how his own family has in
14:57 fact grappled with this issue.
15:00 And as I told my mom, like, the biggest risk here is that we give her too much and she
15:03 is stoned for a few hours.
15:06 We'll be right back.
15:14 And now back to Chasing Life.
15:20 I don't know where I've landed, Aaron, on whether or not if my parents came to me and
15:24 said, "Hey, okay, you've done seven documentaries on this and, you know, we're reading all this
15:28 stuff about cannabis and we have these nuisances of aging.
15:33 Should we try it?"
15:34 But I got to tell you, you know, at this point in my life, I think I'd be a lot less reluctant
15:40 to go ahead and say try it, which is not something I would have said 10 years ago.
15:44 But what should they take away from this though?
15:47 I mean, they are ambulating, they're getting around, they go to the gym every day.
15:53 But as I mentioned, they deal with some of these, I guess what we call the nuisances
15:56 of aging, as they've sort of alluded to them.
16:00 What about them?
16:01 With everything that you know, if you were their grandson, what would you tell them?
16:07 You know, the first thing that I'd want to know is how much of these things actually
16:09 bothering them?
16:10 Are these things actually impacting their quality of life?
16:13 And are they preventing them from doing the things they enjoy doing and seeing the people
16:17 they enjoy seeing?
16:18 That to me is the biggest question.
16:20 If the answer to that question is like, you know, I get together with my friends and all
16:23 we talk about is our arthritis and we have a great time joking around about it, then
16:27 like that doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal to them.
16:30 In fact, it actually allows them to bond with other people about their changes.
16:34 But if they say, you know, my, you know, my insomnia is so bad, you know, the hypnotics
16:39 don't work, or they make me confused.
16:41 None of the other medications the market do anything for me.
16:44 And I can't function, I'm staying home all day, I'm tired, I'm like, not myself, I need
16:48 something desperately.
16:49 Then at that point, you know, I'm not going to argue with them, I'm going to say, yeah,
16:52 if that's if you think that may help you, like go figure out what formulation can help
16:56 with sleep and test it out.
16:57 You know, at this point, that's safer, that's a safer option than a lot of the hypnotics
17:00 at a low dose in a controlled environment, you know, as long as they're not on medications
17:04 that interact with it.
17:06 But you'd still say do the hypnotics first, could it be a first line?
17:10 Or do you think that you have to exhaust everything else?
17:13 I will try the pharmaceuticals first, just because again, I can they're predictable.
17:17 I know the side effect profile, I know how to dose them, you know, all those things are
17:21 there.
17:22 And you know, if they don't do on pharmaceuticals, I do pretty quick trials of them, then, you
17:25 know, if they say I want to go test out cannabis and see if that helps me with sleep, I, I'm
17:30 not going to discourage it, I actually will use it as a learning experience for myself,
17:33 frankly, to see if it is effective for them and what they're actually taking.
17:35 And as long as again, the safety parameters are there, I'm not going to tell them not
17:38 to do it.
17:39 As a first line treatment, my issue with prescribing this stuff at this point is that again, no
17:44 guidelines, it's not predictable, I don't know what's in the formulations, I don't know
17:48 how it's interacting with the pharmaceuticals they're on, I just can't responsibly prescribe
17:51 it as a physician trying to practice with integrity at this point.
17:56 These issues aren't just abstract ones for Dr. Greenstein.
17:59 He talks to his patients about these issues regularly.
18:02 And it's also something he has experienced firsthand with someone he was really close
18:06 to his late grandmother, Marion.
18:09 Backing up a little bit, just a funny story is when I told my grandmother that I was going
18:12 into geriatric psychiatry, she asked why I didn't just become a real doctor.
18:18 Hey, just so you know, that happens I think with all parent-child, grandparent-grandchild
18:26 relationships.
18:28 So she asked me that many times, you know, why don't you just become a family doctor?
18:30 Why don't you just become a real doctor?
18:32 Why are you going into this crazy field?
18:35 And I would say the interesting piece is a big part of why I went into geriatric psychiatry
18:38 is because I grew up around my grandparents.
18:40 My mom's parents were both Holocaust survivors.
18:43 And you know, with people who have gone through such deep trauma, a big coping strategy is
18:47 just narrative, it's just talking.
18:49 And talking about their experiences and their stories, talking, talking, talking.
18:52 And I grew up around that.
18:54 And when I rotated in geriatric psychiatry and I realized that a huge part of this job
18:58 is just the life narrative and, you know, learning about people's lives, I was like,
19:02 sign me up.
19:03 This is like, I was basically trained for this my whole life, being around my grandparents.
19:07 So even though she was, you know, upset that I didn't become a real doctor, she was a big
19:11 part of why I became a geriatric psychiatrist.
19:14 That's very interesting.
19:15 Yeah, and then ultimately, as she, you know, went through the really difficult end of her
19:20 life, I was one of the few people who actually was able to come up with ways to help her
19:23 with this unimaginable distress she was going through.
19:26 Can you describe what was happening?
19:28 So at about two years ago, she had a fall.
19:34 And then like a month later, couldn't get up from her chair.
19:37 The fall was, you know, bad, but she got picked up and was able to walk after that.
19:41 A month later, she can get up from her chair, said she had back pain.
19:44 My mom took her to the emergency room, and they found incidentally that she had a spinal
19:49 fracture and said that she needed to have surgery on it.
19:53 So from the time she went into the emergency room, she became confused, which in our lingo
19:58 is encephalopathy or delirium.
20:01 And the content of her confusion was all Holocaust related.
20:06 I want to give you a little warning here.
20:09 What Dr. Greenstein is about to describe can be difficult to hear.
20:13 It might even be triggering to some.
20:16 Starting from that point, through a hospital admission, through a rehab admission, the
20:21 traumatic memories just came back and just went on day and night.
20:26 She was confusing medical staff with Nazis.
20:28 I mean, she accused me of murdering her family multiple times.
20:31 She just was in this confused state where she was reliving all of this unimaginable
20:35 trauma she went through.
20:37 There's one really distinct moment when a phlebotomist came to take her blood.
20:41 And she said to this phlebotomist, "Why are you taking my blood?
20:46 What about all of the other girls here?"
20:48 And what she was alluding to was that Dr. Mengele, who was the Nazi physician, actually
20:53 drew her blood when she was in Auschwitz.
20:56 And she in that moment of this phlebotomist coming to draw her blood was reliving that
21:00 moment.
21:01 And yes, she had spoken about it, but she had never relived it from what I'd seen.
21:06 So that phlebotomist was shaken.
21:07 He didn't know what to do with that information.
21:11 So this sort of thing went on and it really deeply impacted her care.
21:15 I mean, when you say comments like that to a phlebotomist, it impacts the ability for
21:19 that person to do their job.
21:21 This all happened while Dr. Greenstein was still in residency.
21:25 So he tried to help his grandmother as much as he could along with her primary care doctors.
21:30 But nothing really worked to calm her down.
21:32 So Dr. Greenstein said he was actually shocked when his own mother recommended going to a
21:37 dispensary as a last ditch effort.
21:39 They decided to give it a try.
21:41 We gave her like, you know, two and a half milligrams first, not effective, five milligrams
21:45 and her screaming and agitation and recall of traumatic memories from the Holocaust like
21:49 stopped like within minutes.
21:53 And nothing else worked.
21:54 Antipsychotics didn't work.
21:55 Mood stabilizers didn't work.
21:56 Nothing worked for more than maybe a few hours.
22:00 And she, we basically dosed it, you know, ongoing.
22:04 I think she lived maybe a few weeks after we started doing that or a month.
22:09 But you know, it was this one substance that was really able to relieve her of, you know,
22:14 reliving these memories that, you know, nobody needs to relive.
22:18 And you know, going through this whole experience again, that, you know, that had happened 80
22:22 years earlier.
22:23 Yeah, it was an unbelievable treatment that actually helped her maintain this quality
22:28 of life.
22:29 And then, you know, she ultimately passed away peacefully.
22:30 And, you know, thankfully had an end, a really abrupt end to this reliving of the Holocaust
22:36 that she had gone through.
22:39 You didn't know for sure whether it was going to work.
22:42 I mean, you'd read the read the trials, you read the results of this, the smaller studies.
22:47 What about the risks?
22:48 Yeah, so I mean, the risks were not that high at that point in life.
22:52 Again, this is towards the end of life.
22:54 She was not really ambulating much, you know, she wasn't really walking around much.
22:57 She wasn't taking many other medications at that point.
23:01 And her cognition was pretty poor.
23:03 So a lot of the things that I worry about with older adults really didn't pertain to
23:06 her.
23:07 And as I told my mom, like, the biggest risk here is that we give her too much and she
23:11 is stoned for a few hours.
23:13 That's the biggest risk at this point in time.
23:15 And frankly, that's probably a better state to be in than her current state of distress.
23:19 So I think in that narrow, you know, if this is an indication, it's a very narrow one of
23:24 like, you know, end of life, you know, distress or terminal delirium, whatever you want to
23:28 call it.
23:29 But if it can relieve that without causing over sedation, like that seems like a really
23:32 great use of a of a compound, because at that point, you're not as worried about the risk
23:36 profile of it.
23:37 This is a time where it's, you know, the risks are so minimal.
23:39 This is a person who is going to live, you know, weeks, months longer.
23:42 Dr. Greenstein says this is fundamentally a story about the way cannabis can be used
23:48 to treat some of the trauma and post traumatic stress that can surface later in life.
23:53 But it's also about much more than that.
23:56 He believes it helped his grandmother die with dignity for other folks like Ken, who
24:02 I met at the dispensary at the beginning of the episode.
24:05 It can even help someone age with integrity.
24:09 That's a concept that came up during my conversation with Dr. Greenstein, and I found it really
24:13 fascinating.
24:14 The psychologist, Eric Erickson, you know, defines that the emotional development milestones
24:20 at that last period of life as integrity versus despair, right?
24:24 So there's people who age with integrity or they end up in despair.
24:27 And again, it's very much a reflection of their lifelong emotional development.
24:30 A lot of the people that I see are people who actually age with despair, and they struggle
24:34 in their last decades of life.
24:35 And again, it's very much based on, I would say a lot of it's actually based on childhood,
24:40 frankly, and like how they developed emotionally at that point in time, but also like what
24:45 their life trajectory looked like, you know, if they're actually able to look back and
24:47 be proud of their accomplishments and proud of their life and, you know, proud of their
24:51 kids and grandkids.
24:52 I mean, those are people who are able to age with integrity.
24:54 And then, you know, there are people who age with despair.
24:56 So again, I have this biased perspective because I just, you know, I see the despair, you know,
25:01 on a day to day basis.
25:02 I am inspired though, by people who age with integrity.
25:05 And that's really why I went into this line of work.
25:06 And it's really what I preach to my patients a lot is, you know, finding ways to find a
25:09 meaning and purpose in late life so that they can have the integrity.
25:14 I was incredibly moved by Dr. Greenstein's story and the lessons he's learned along the
25:20 way with his own grandmother.
25:22 I think it's safe to say, based on the new studies and the old stories, cannabis can
25:28 help with the many nuisances of aging.
25:31 Look, it's not a miracle drug.
25:34 It's not a cure.
25:35 But man, the impact it seemed to have on Marion and Ken, helping with their most existential
25:42 fears and worries that could come with their aging.
25:46 That was really something.
25:47 That's what I think we all want for the older folks in our lives, even ourselves, to stay
25:53 sharp, to stay healthy, and to age with integrity.
26:05 Next week on Chasing Life, do you want to live to 100?
26:09 I don't know how old I feel.
26:10 I've never felt this old.
26:13 But I am going to be 99 in August.
26:17 And I have to say I'm grateful that I feel as well as I do at this age.
26:24 That's next Tuesday on the season finale of Chasing Life.
26:28 Thanks for listening.
26:31 Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio.
26:34 Our podcast is produced by David Rind, Xavier Lopez, and Grace Walker.
26:39 Our senior producer and showrunner is Felicia Patinkin.
26:42 Andrea Cain is our medical writer, and Tommy Bazarian is our engineer.
26:47 Dan DiGiulia is our technical director.
26:49 And the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Lickti.
26:53 Also a special thanks to Ben Tinker, Amanda Seely, and Nadia Kunang of CNN Health.
27:01 (gentle music)
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