When Cheryl MacLellan opened Hemp Country, a medical marijuana dispensary and shop for other pot-related goods in downtown Woodstock, Ont., about seven years ago, it attracted a young set.
Gradually, though, young adults were replaced by middle-aged patrons and, eventually, retirees. They entered sheepishly at first, Ms. MacLellan recalled, browsing items like hemp socks before noticing, as if by chance, the assortment of glass pipes, cannabis-laced baked goods and rolling papers.
“When we opened … the younger people were coming in and we were like, ‘Come back when you’re this tall,’ ” said Ms. MacLellan, a 55-year-old former police officer. “The people coming in daily now, they’re all white hairs.”
Her customers reflect a subtle demographic shift in marijuana users nationwide that anecdotal evidence suggests is a blend of medicinal and social needs.
The 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey released last week showed that 6.7 per cent of adults between the ages of 45 and 64 used the drug in the last year, up from 4.3 per cent in 2002. Among adults over 65, the percentage of users quadrupled over the same period, to 0.8 per cent from 0. 2 per cent.
David Andreatta
The Globe and Mail
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