If Florida is a place where people come to grow old and die, the passing of Amendment 2 in November to legalize medical marijuana in our state has seriously sweetened the pot.

While stoners, civil liberties folks, and reasonable people have long been proponents of legal medical marijuana, regardless of anyone’s stance on it, this medicine stands to help a lot of people. And while we all have compassion for the kids with relentless daily seizures that nothing helps as well as cannabis, in reality the majority of people who will benefit from this herbal medicine are senior citizens, since medical marijuana helps with so many conditions that affect those in their golden years, from arthritis to Alzheimer's.

Here in Florida, 19 percent of people are over 65 years old, the highest percentage of that population in any U.S state, so we’re bound to move some serious product. 

On the one hand, it’s going to be weird to see elderly people hanging out at dispensaries doing stuff like comparing marijuana strains and hoarding their new and improved hard candies.

On the other hand, as I’ve written about before, a lot of older people have ditched the What-To-Expect-When-Expecting-To-Waste-Away-And-Die-Soon handbook that for all of time seemed to be given to everyone when they turn 70, compliments of preconceived notions. So in a way, senior citizens’ presence at dispensaries is totes apropros. After all, many who reject those notions were part of the '60s counterculture, the group that made recreational reefer a mainstay of our current culture. 

The fact that the stigma towards marijuana is greatly depleted now is largely thanks to those dirty hippies, and generations of people who came after them who have smoked weed or know people who smoke it and also know that’s it’s far more benign than our beloved and very legal alcohol and cigarettes. 

Still, I suspect for many elderly who raised kids in that '60s counter-culture, the idea of marijuana as an illicit, dangerous drug is probably hard to kick.

Earlier in the year when my grandmother was dying of gall bladder cancer, how I longed for medical marijuana to help with her nausea and lack of appetite. The idea of being able to give her a cookie, a thing she loved to eat, with natural chemicals baked-in that would ease her suffering, seemed like such a pleasant and harmless way to help her — no side effects, just relief — and it was really dismaying that this option was not available to her. 

However, law-abiding gal that she was, I’m not sure how receptive she would’ve been to the idea of us feeding her illegal pot brownies, which brings me to another really great thing about Amendment 2 passing: 

The legalization and legitimization by doctors of THC and CBD, the chemicals in cannabis that have medicinal effects, go such a long way toward making the Reefer Madness generation feel better about using this plant to ease their suffering. 

Once in a great while, Florida, we actually get it right.

This article appears in Dec 29, 2016 – Jan 5, 2017.