February 28, 2028 – A significant recent study on marijuana use answers some previously essential unknowns about health risks from smoking, vaping or consuming edible cannabis.
The results are relevant to most individuals 1 in 5 people in the US who devour the drug annually.
Published on Wednesday within the Journal of the American Heart AssociationResearchers found the next risk of cardiovascular problems similar to heart attacks and strokes in every day and non-daily patients marijuana Users, even when people haven’t also smoked or smoked tobacco.
The results are based on survey responses from greater than 434,000 people between 2016 and 2020 as a part of the CDC Behavioral risk factor monitoring system.
Respondents lived in 27 states and two U.S. territories. Among them, five, including California, Colorado and Guam, had legalized recreational marijuana. More than a dozen jurisdictions within the study had legalized medical marijuana.
Survey participants ranged in age from 18 to 74 and answered the query, “On how many days in the last 30 days have you used marijuana or hashish?” Users were chosen based on their reactions and other demographic and health risk aspects similar to diabetes, alcohol consumption, or the Question whether or not they had ever smoked cigarettes assigned to non-users.
Among survey respondents, 4% said they used marijuana every day and seven% said they didn’t use marijuana every day. Among users, the typical monthly marijuana use was 5 days monthly. About three out of 4 users reported consuming marijuana through smoking.
Based on the self-reported experiences of individuals with cardiovascular problems, the study found that any cannabis use was related to the next risk of a heart attack or stroke, even when people had never used tobacco. The risk increased depending on how often an individual smoked in a month. In particular, the evaluation showed that every day use increases the chance of:
- Coronary heart disease by 16%
- Heart attack by 25%
- Stroke by 42%
- Overall cardiovascular problems by 28%
“Cannabis smoke is not all that different from tobacco smoke, except for the psychoactive drug: THC vs. nicotine,” said lead study creator Abra Jeffers, PhD, an information analyst at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, in a opinion. “Our study shows that smoking cannabis, like smoking tobacco, poses significant cardiovascular risks. This is particularly important as cannabis use increases and conventional tobacco use declines.”
These latest findings add to previous evidence linking heart problems to marijuana use, but these initial studies were limited to small sample sizes of users or based largely on younger users. Other previous research has been limited in its ability to look at differences between individuals who used each marijuana and tobacco in comparison with individuals who only used marijuana. Researchers on this latest study concluded that their findings indicate a necessity for healthcare providers to screen patients for marijuana use.