TUESDAY, March 18, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Cannabis use is associated with an increased risk for adverse cardiovascular events, including myocardial infarction (MI), according to a study published online March 18 in JACC Advances to coincide with the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology, held from March 29 to 31 in Chicago.

Ibrahim Kamel, M.D., from the Boston University School of Medicine, and colleagues examined the long-term cardiovascular effects of cannabis use in relatively healthy individuals aged 50 years and younger. The population was divided into two cohorts: the cannabis user group and the non-cannabis-user group. Propensity score matching was performed using the greedy nearest neighbor matching algorithm.

The analyses included 4,636,628 relatively healthy adults: 2.01 percent cannabis users and 97.99 percent nonusers. After propensity score matching, 89,776 patients were included in each group. The researchers found that MI absolute risk was 0.558 versus 0.09 percent in cannabis users versus nonusers, with a risk difference of 0.468 percent, risk ratio of 6.185, and odds ratio of 6.214. Lower survival probability was seen in cannabis users in the Kaplan-Meier analysis, with a hazard ratio of 7.568. For ischemic stroke, the absolute risk was 0.405 and 0.094 percent in cannabis users and nonusers, risk difference was 0.312 percent, risk ratio 4.333, and odds ratio 4.347. The hazard ratio was 5.151 for Kaplan-Meir survival probability.

“This analysis provides evidence linking cannabis use to adverse cardiovascular events, including MI, ischemic stroke, heart failure and mortality,” the authors write. “Notably, cannabis use appears to pose a substantial and independent risk for these outcomes, even in a population without traditional cardiovascular risk factors.”

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