Marijuana Doubles Your Risk of Dying From Heart Disease—And Edibles May Not Be Safer
With weed use at an all-time high, doctors are urging for education reform.
In 2021, approximately 52.5 million Americans (about 19 percent of the country’s population) used marijuana, reports the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of course, it goes without saying that both medical and recreational use of weed have only gained popularity since then. It’s estimated that three in 10 users have a cannabis disorder—this risk increases in those who start experimenting with weed before turning 18. Although marijuana has been associated with improvements in anxiety and insomnia, new research indicates that it can trigger adverse cardiovascular effects, such as heart attack and stroke—and edibles may not be any safer.
RELATED: This Common Sleep Habit Could Raise Heart Attack and Stroke Risk by 26%, New Study Finds.
A groundbreaking study reveals dangerous cardiovascular effects of smoking weed.
A meta-analysis of 24 studies involving nearly 200 million people from six different countries, including the U.S., has found that marijuana users have a significantly increased risk of suffering a cardiovascular event, specifically, heart attack and stroke. The new research appears in the journal Heart.
“This is one of the largest studies to date on the connection between marijuana and heart disease, and it raises serious questions about the assumption that cannabis imposes little cardiovascular risk,” pediatrician Lynn Silver, MD, a clinical professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), told CNN.
Health records were pulled from large, observational studies that took place between 2016 and 2023. Although vast in data, some details were limited. For instance, we don’t know how much (quantity), how often, or how individuals used marijuana (i.e., smoking, vaping, edibles, tinctures, etc.). But for the purpose of their analysis, lead author Émilie Jouanjus said the team generally assumed that most individuals smoked.
Here’s what they found: Marijuana users have a 29 percent higher risk for heart attacks and a 20 percent higher stroke risk than their peers who don’t dabble with cannabis.
When you compare smoking weed to smoking nicotine/tobacco, it’s no surprise that it yields similar consequences.
“When you burn something, whether it is tobacco or cannabis, it creates toxic compounds, carcinogens, and particulate matter that are harmful to health,” Beth Cohen, MD, an internist and UCSF medicine professor, previously explained to CNN.
However, what’s even more alarming is that these statistics didn’t discriminate against age, so young people, who were considered relatively healthy on paper, weren’t marked safe either. The average age of study patients was 38 years.
“What was particularly striking was that the concerned patients hospitalized for these disorders were young (and thus, not likely to have their clinical features due to tobacco smoking) and with no history of cardiovascular disorder or cardiovascular risk factors,” added Jouanjus, an associate professor of pharmacology at the University of Toulouse, France.
RELATED: Can Cannabis Raise Your Dementia Risk? New Study Finds Link.
Another study says edibles could pose health risks as well.
A small pilot study involving 55 people compared major artery ultrasounds between marijuana smokers, THC edible users, and those who don’t use weed at all.
THC stands for “delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol,” according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). It’s a psychoactive chemical as well as the main ingredient in cannabis that’s responsible for triggering feelings of “euphoria or intense happiness.”
Findings indicate that high amounts of THC were associated with poor heart health.
“We found that vascular function was reduced by 42 percent in marijuana smokers and by 56 percent in THC-edible users compared to nonusers,” lead study author Leila Mohammadi, PhD, an assistant researcher in cardiology at UCSF, told CNN in an email.
The takeaway:
Silver believes marijuana use should be taken just as seriously as alcohol, smoking, and hard drug usage, especially by medical experts.
“Clinicians need to screen people for cannabis use and educate them about its harms, the same way we do for tobacco, because in some population groups it’s being used more widely than tobacco,” she said in her CNN interview. “Our regulatory system, which has been almost entirely focused on creating legal infrastructure and licensing legal, for-profit (cannabis) businesses, needs to focus much more strongly on health warnings that educate people about the real risks.”
If you’re going to use marijuana, Salomeh Keyhani, MD, a medicine professor at UCSF, recommends doing so “infrequently” and opting for products “with as low a THC concentration as possible,” per her interview with The New York Times.
Most importantly, before using marijuana, whether for medical or recreational use, speak with a healthcare professional to learn about proper dosage, usage, and potential risks/interferences with other medications and/or health conditions.
