Stoners Vastly More Likely to Have Heart Attacks At a Young Age

Cannabis use appears to be linked to a significant increase in heart attack and stroke risk for folks under 50, a new study has found.

As the American College of Cardiology (ACC) explained in a statement, Boston University researchers found by analyzing healthcare records for more than 4.6 million patients that those who used cannabis under 50 had a sixfold increase in heart attack risk than their non-stoner counterparts.

What's more, those who dabbled in the devil's lettuce had a four times greater risk of stroke, double the risk of heart failure, and triple the risk of dying from heart attacks or strokes.

In a paper due to be published in the journal JACC: Advances, Boston University clinical instructor Ibrahim Kamel and his team used data from the TriNetX health research network, a tool that allows researchers to access non-identified healthcare records from around the world.

Looking at people under the age of 50 between the years 2010 and 2018, the team identified more than 4.6 million "relatively healthy adults" to see how their healthcare outcomes fared over the years. After narrowing it down to about 90,000 cannabis users and an equivalently sized group of non-users, the researchers found that the risks for heart attacks, stroke, and related deaths were substantially higher among the using group.

In the ACC's statement, Kamel suggested cannabis legalization around the United States should lead doctors to ask their patients more questions about their pot use — especially given the growing body of evidence that it's not as risk-free as some advocates would have you think.

"Asking about cannabis use should be part of clinicians' workup to understand patients' overall cardiovascular risk, similar to asking about smoking cigarettes," he said. "At a policy level, a fair warning should be made so that the people who are consuming cannabis know that there are risks."

Still, there are other factors to consider when it comes to weed, which is still illegal on the federal level.

"We should have some caution in interpreting the findings in that cannabis consumption is usually associated with other substances such as cocaine or other illicit drugs that are not accounted for," Kamel said. "Patients should be forthcoming with their doctors and remember that we are their number one advocate and having the full story matters."

Notably, the records Kamel and his team looked at also didn't differentiate between smoking pot and ingesting it in other forms, like edibles. They also didn't look at levels of cannabis use or doses — and anyone who has known true stoners can attest that there's a big difference between a bong-ripper's choked coughing fits and the chilled-out bliss of those who occasionally pop indica gummies.

Still, this link is pretty alarming — and a good reminder that weed, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be consequence-free.

More on weed: If You Blazed Massive Amounts of Weed as a Youth, Scientists Have Interesting News

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