On Monday’s CBS Evening News, the show’s “Eye on America” segment celebrated the supposed surge in elderly Americans — increasingly consisting of the Baby Boomer generation — have become hooked on marijuana.

“Eye on America, the Acapulco golden years. More older Americans are getting high on marijuana,” boasted co-anchor Maurice DuBois in one of three teases.

DuBois later added the set-up to the piece from chief correspondent Jim Axelrod: “[T]onight, we focus on one way [America] has changed. When the Baby Boom generation was coming-of-age, marijuana use was against the law. Well, now in much of America, it’s legal. As Jim Axelrod reports some boomers are making up for lost time.”

Axelrod opened with a giggly Boomer making a pot-laced dessert and then another rolling a joint amid the supposed surge of 46 percent in elderly marijuana usage from 2021 to 2023 (click “expand”):

AXELROD: Don Searles is going to a party and doesn’t want to show up empty-handed to.

DON SEARLES: That’s done. In goes peanuts.

AXELROD: So, he’s making peanut brittle using an old family recipe with a modern-day twist. [TO SEARLES] Now you got a new ingredient.

SEARLES: We added the marijuana. Yeah

AXELROD: The party Don’s attending is an old school pot party although this one has a new wrinkle: It’s at the Trilogy Retirement Community, an hour east of San Francisco where lately that golf course has a new competitor for popularity.

CRAWLEY: This is the old style of rolling a joint.

AXELROD: Cannabis. Gail Crawley, the host of the party, is 74 and not at all surprised about new numbers. Between 2021 and 2023 cannabis use among Americans 65 and older went up 46 percent. [TO CRAWLEY] Does that surprise you at all?

CRAWLEY: No.

AXELROD [TO CRAWLEY]: Why not?

CRAWLEY: Cannabis is a good solution to a lot of medicinal issues.

He spoke of a third anecdote with another Bay Area nursing home resident saying he’s only consumed edibles and the dessert guy using it to combat chronic pain as proof “the stigma is gone” surrounding usage since marijuana is “ legal in 40 states for medical use and a 24 for recreational.”

This led into the only brief mention of there being anyone not on board with this:

AXELROD: That’s his experience but some medical professionals think differently.

MATT SPRINGER: If they are smoking marijuana, we can be pretty confident that they’re harming their cardiovascular system.

AXELROD: Professor Matt Springer at UC San Francisco has a warning. The active ingredient may carry health risks no matter how seniors get it. Smoking it, dummies, even peanut brittle. [TO SPRINGER] For people who get their THC through edibles what does your study suggest?

SPRINGER: It suggests they might be having an adverse, harmful effect on their cardiovascular system. If they’re eating THC, they’re not without risk.

Axelrod swung the pendulum even further toward glorifying weed, citing the peanut brittle guy as happy with using it since he was in a motorcycle accident five years ago.

“So, there’s a new study out, it shows a connection between cannabis use and cardiovascular disease,” Axelrod asked.

The man replied: “It doesn’t surprise me. I go to my doctor and he says, jeez, quit drinking milk, stay away from sugar. You know, what — what is it bad for you nowadays?”

Axelrod boasted in his conclusion: “Despite the warnings, these seniors are happy just the way they are: high and retiring.”

Between, say, 2009 and 2016, CBS went through a period where it repeatedly celebrated pot and became infatuated with every nook and cranny of the drug infecting American society (versus only few examples of the perils of the drug like here, here, and here).

Here ware a sampling of NewsBusters headlines from CBS’s years of obsession with weed, thanks in large part due to then-correspondent Barry Petersen:

• November 23, 2009: CBS Early Show Highlights Mom Giving Medical Marijuana to Autistic Son
• January 24, 2014: CBS Touts ‘Cannabis Capitalism’ and ‘Pot Tours’ That Cure the ‘Marijuana Munchies’
• April 21, 2014: CBS Puffs Legalized Pot in Colorado, Touts the Best Marijuana: ‘Ghost Train Haze’
• June 17, 2014: CBS Puffs Pot as an Empowerment Tool for Women: ‘Breaking the Grass Ceiling’
• July 7, 2014: CBS, NBC Push Puff Pieces on Pot, Dream of ‘Light Up and Write Up’ Pulitzer Pot Prize
• July 9, 2014: CBS Returns to Puffing Pot: ‘High Times’ in Seattle
• October 27, 2014: CBS Continues Pot Push, Focuses on Marijuana ‘Miracle’
• November 26, 2014: CBS Wishes Viewers a ‘Merry Marijuana’ and a ‘Happy Cannabis!’
• March 30, 2015: Pot-Obsessed CBS Puffs: ‘Facebook for Stoners’
• May 19, 2015: CBS This Morning Promotes ‘Pot Entrepreneurs’ In Colorado
• May 21, 2015: CBS Puffs the Joys of Pot: ‘Weed Pimps’ and Marijuana on the Radio
• June 8, 2015: CBS This Morning Touts ‘Celebrities Trying to Capitalize’ on Pot
• July 12, 2016: CBS Cheers Pot Legalization After Warning of Dangers

In recent years, something must have changed as the rare mentions of pot being a cultural featured examples like this one from last year conceding legalization has done nothing to drive down the black market.

To see the relevant CBS transcript from September 8, click here.