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Marijuana use may increase the chances of developing an often temporary but still frightening heart condition, suggests new preliminary research presented this week at the annual American Heart Association Meeting.
Researchers analyzed records from the country's largest database on hospital stays, called the National Inpatient Sample (NIS). They looked at over 33,000 people hospitalized with stress cardiomyopathy, better known as "broken heart syndrome," from 2003 to 2011. When they focused on the 210 patients who reported using marijuana soon before they experienced its telltale symptoms, which closely resemble a heart attack, they found noticeable differences between them and the typical sufferer. Not only were these patients often younger men instead of older women, but they had fewer known risk factors for the condition, like high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes. They were also slightly more likely to go into cardiac arrest and require an implanted defibrillator to prevent later cardiac events (2.4 percent vs 0.6 percent).
These differences could indicate that marijuana alone can increase the risk of stress cardiomyopathy, the researchers concluded. After accounting for other known factors, they estimated that users were nearly twice as likely to develop it than non-users.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Wednesday November 16 2016, @06:43PM
I'm not totally sure of your angle here, but 100% safe is hardly a reasonable target for legalization. The controlled substances act requires three things for listing on schedule I:
A. The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
B. The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
C. There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
These don't appear to be on any absolute scale, but I think it's fair to say that both alcohol and cigarettes A. have at least as high a potential for abuse as marijuana, B. have less evidence for medical usefulness than marijuana, and C. are no safer than marijuana. If the law were applied as written they should both be illegal. So this policy has only a thin veneer of empirical basis, which is clearly bullshit once you actually look at what is and isn't listed.
I bet you anything the alcohol, tobacco, prescription painkiller, and/or private prison lobbies are offering some real money to scientists doing studies like this. Wow, smoking dope *might* double your chance of a super-rare condition! Well drinking alcohol and driving at least doubles your chances of a fairly common condition called dying in a car, and worse, the risk extends to everyone on the road with you. There's no way this argument has anything to do with safety, is all I'm trying to say. The government is using that as an excuse so they can claim "well, we're just trying to keep you safe".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @06:59PM
The controlled substances act
Is unconstitutional and therefore completely invalid to begin with. It's pretty insane that the federal government thinks it can use the commerce clause to control non-commerce, commerce that isn't interstate, or both.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @10:26PM
Alcohol (ethanol) is the antidote for ethylene glycol poisoning. You must stay drunk until the ethylene glycol is eliminated from your body.
Cigarettes can be eaten to eliminate parasitic worms. This is probably not the ideal treatment, but it counts. It's one of several options listed in the old US Army survival book.