According to a new meta-analysis in the journal Heart, the risk of death due to cardiovascular disease is doubled in cannabis users. Not only that, it is also associated with a higher risk of stroke and acute coronary syndrome, which occurs when blood flow to the heart is suddenly stopped or reduced.
Based on these results, a pair of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, published a related article arguing for a different treatment of the drug in the future — a treatment in which cannabis is decriminalized, but still discouraged, on the basis of heart health.
“The robust meta-analysis of cannabis use and cardiovascular disease […] raises serious questions about the assumption that cannabis imposes little cardiovascular risk,” the University of California researchers assert in their article, also published in Heart. “Specifically, cannabis should be treated like tobacco: not criminalized, but discouraged, with protection of bystanders from ...
