Are There Health Risks Associated With Marijuana Use?

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Are There Health Risks Associated to Marijuana Use?


Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug in the United States, it is used more than all other illegal drugs combined. It has been estimated that 33% of the U.S population over the age of 12 has used marijuana at least once in their lifetime. Roughly 20 million people use marijuana yearly, and about 2 million people are thought to use marijuana everyday. (5) Marijuana use is often associated with adverse health affects such as impaired judgment leading to injury, impaired cognitive functioning, adverse affects on the immune system, and increased heart trauma, but the problem is that studies of the potential health risks of marijuana use have been scarce and contradictory. (2) This paper looks at several of these studies to determine if marijuana use is “bad” for you as far as associated health risks.
The use of marijuana by older people has increased, thus increasing cannabis use among the age group most prone to coronary artery disease. Cannabis is the medical term used for marijuana. Smoking marijuana is known to increase heart rate by 20 to 100%, so it is the purpose of this study to see whether marijuana use can trigger an onset of myocardial infarction. This was epidemiological study of 3882 patients who were interviewed within a week of their infarction onset; of these patients 124 reported smoking marijuana within the past year before the incident, 37 within a day, and 9 within an hour. The study found that the risk of myocardial infarction onset was increased 4.8 times in the hour following marijuana use. The elevated risks were found to decrease rapidly after the initial hour. The heart risks associated with marijuana were also found to be much less than that of cocaine which has been found to increase the risks of myocardial infarction by as much as 24 times. (3)
Marijuana has also been associated with non-coronary health risks, such as the weake...