Baby boomers still love to get high, pop pills

New York, January 9 (ANI): Millions of baby boomers still love to get high and turn to drugs and prescription medicines for the aid, according to a study.

Pamela Hyde, head of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the federal agency that conducted the study, found that out of the roughly 5 million drug users over age 50, 45 percent identified themselves as pot smokers, 33 percent as prescription drug users and the rest as users of other illicit drugs.

"This new data has profound implications for the health and well being of older adults who continue to abuse substances," the New York Daily News quoted Hyde as saying.

Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of Geriatric Psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center, explained some people born between 1946 and 1964 continued drug abuse treatment into adulthood.

He said: "It could be an adult who used to smoke a joint every night before bed and now they take a sleeping pill," adding that alcohol is "still the king of abused substances." (ANI)