PREVIOUS STUDIES

Acceptance of and access to medical marijuana and CBD as palliative care and hospice treatments for nursing home patients.

The WISE Study: Women’s Insights, Sentiments, and Expectations about cannabinoids

Florida is home to one of the country’s largest and fastest-growing populations of older adults — and 60% of patients in the state’s Medical Marijuana Use Registry are age 50 and older. Among them, 44% report using CBD-only products, 21% use both THC and CBD, and 24% use THC-only. Older adults are now the fastest-growing group of cannabis users in the United States, and most report using it for medical rather than recreational reasons: for pain, for sleep, for anxiety, for post-traumatic stress.

They are also the largest consumers of prescription medication. Roughly two-thirds take multiple prescriptions — antidepressants, anxiolytics, opioids, cardiovascular drugs — alongside over-the-counter medicines and dietary supplements. Yet three out of four older adults consider weekly cannabis use to carry little or no health risk.

The evidence base has not kept pace with this shift. THC and CBD act differently in the body: THC is intoxicating and has antiemetic and analgesic effects, while CBD is nonintoxicating and has been studied for anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, and anxiolytic properties. But most studies of both compounds have enrolled adults under 50. The few that included older adults did not examine differences by sex — and none have centered older women.

The WISE Study is designed to close that gap. Using a mixed-methods design that pairs survey data with in-depth interviews, SAGE asks older women directly what they believe about cannabis and CBD, what they expect these products to do, and what leads them to choose a CBD-dominant product, a THC+CBD product, or a THC-dominant one.

What we’re asking:

Attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. How do older women evaluate different cannabis and CBD products, and what reasons do they give for using them?

Expectations and preconceptions. What do older women expect cannabis and CBD to do for their health — and where do those expectations come from?

Why it matters?

Older women are making decisions about cannabis and CBD now, often alongside complex medication regimens and often without guidance from a clinician. Understanding how they think about these products is the first step toward research, education, and care that actually reflects their needs.

The CALM Study: Cannabinoids and ALcohol Moderation

Something is changing in how adults manage their drinking. People who want to cut back are no longer choosing only between abstinence and a support group. They are trying moderation apps, meditation, prescription medications — and, increasingly, cannabis and CBD. Some describe swapping an evening drink for a low-dose gummy. Others use CBD for the sleep problems or anxiety that made them reach for a drink in the first place. Very little research has asked these adults directly what they are doing, or why.

Substitution is not a single behavior. Replacing alcohol with a CBD-only product is a different decision, with different expectations and different consequences, than replacing it with THC-containing marijuana — or using both. Yet most existing work treats “cannabis” as one category, and rarely asks what actually drives the choice.

The CALM Study is designed to take that question seriously. We are surveying 400 men and women across Florida who drink alcohol, to understand who substitutes, what they substitute with, and what is pushing the decision.

What we’re asking:

What people choose?

Who substitutes CBD for alcohol, who substitutes THC-containing marijuana, who uses both — and how do these groups differ? We ask about product type (full spectrum, broad spectrum, isolate), preferred THC-to-CBD ratio, typical CBD dose, and which products participants found easier to tolerate.

Why they choose it?

We examine sleep difficulties, stress and coping, self-rated health, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, adverse childhood experiences, and severity of alcohol use as potential predictors of which path a person takes.

What else they have tried?

Participants tell us about the full range of approaches they’ve used to cut back — CBD, THC, moderation apps, meditation, naltrexone, group support, prayer, GLP-1 medications — and how effective each one felt to them.

Why it matters.

Adults are already making these substitutions, largely without clinical guidance and largely outside the view of researchers. Understanding the patterns — and the psychological and health conditions that shape them — is the foundation for evidence-based guidance, for safer products, and for the clinical trials that should follow.