“What stood out the most was that the affected patients hospitalized for these conditions were relatively young (thus, unlikely to exhibit these clinical characteristics due to tobacco use) and showed no prior signs of cardiovascular disorders or risk factors,” according to senior author Émilie Jouanjus, an associate professor of pharmacology at the University of Toulouse in France, in an email statement.
The danger of high potency cannabis
None of the studies included in the new meta-analysis asked users about the potency of THC in the products they consume.
Even if they had, that information would be quickly outdated, Silver said.
“The cannabis market is a moving target. It is getting more potent every day,” she said.
“Currently, what’s available in California is up to 510 times more potent than what was available in the 1970s. Concentrates can reach 99 percent THC purity, while vapes exceed 80 percent THC.
“Various chemically extracted cannabinoids can be nearly pure THC, and their effects differ significantly from smoking a joint back in the 1970s.”
“We know that more potent cannabis makes people more likely to become addicted,” Silver said.
“We know that more potent cannabis makes people more likely to develop psychosis, seeing and hearing things that aren’t there, or schizophrenia. Habitual users may also suffer from uncontrollable vomiting.”
The rise in potency is one reason that the current study may not have captured the full extent of the risk of marijuana for heart disease, Jouanjus said: “We are afraid that the association might be even stronger than that reported.”
While science continues to study the risk, experts say it’s time to think twice about the potential harms of cannabis use – especially if heart disease is a concern.
“If I was a 60-year-old person who had some heart disease risk, I would be very cautious about using cannabis,” Silver said.
“I’ve seen older people who are using cannabis for pain or for sleep, some of whom have significant cardiovascular risk, or who have had strokes or had heart attacks or had angina, and they have no awareness that this may be putting them at greater risk.”
