Characterization of the Use and Perceptions of Cannabis for Mental Health in Older Canadians: A Cross-Sectional Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Older adults are increasingly using cannabis medicinally, including for the treatment of mental health symptoms. The purpose of this report was to characterize cannabis use and perceptions of cannabis safety and effectiveness amongst older adults who use cannabis for the treatment of mental health symptoms. An online survey of cannabis usage and perceptions was conducted between February 2022 to September 2022. This report analyzes older adults currently using cannabis for self-reported mental health symptoms or conditions. A total of 1,615 older Canadians completed the survey, of whom 322 (19.9%) reported using cannabis for mental health symptoms. Most (70.8%) found cannabis somewhat or extremely helpful in managing their symptoms and 73.8% viewed cannabis as safe or very safe compared to pharmaceutical medications. Within the past year, 62.4% reported having experienced an adverse effect of cannabis. Older adults who use cannabis for mental health symptoms view it positively, despite the high prevalence of self-reported adverse effects.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".