April 2022 Br J Cardiol 2022;29:55–9 doi:10.5837/bjc.2022.011
Saad Ahmad, Shwe Win Hlaing, Muhammad Haris, Nadeem Attar
Background and history In recent times, medical marijuana has been a popular topic that has necessitated legal regulation. Annual prevalence of marijuana consumption in 2017 was 147 million or roughly 2.5% worldwide,1 making it the most widely grown, distributed and consumed recreational drug. The cannabis plant as botanical product has 480 natural components, 66 of which are classified as cannabinoids. The most commonly studied component, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) interacts with internal cannabinoid (CB) receptors of the human body. This activates an intricate physiological cascade, i.e. the endocannabinoid system described by Raph
March 2015 Br J Cardiol 2015;22:7–9 doi:10.5837/bjc.2015.006
Ethan B Russo
Ethan B Russo Morbidity and cannabinoids Cardiovascular morbidity secondary to cannabis has been reported: THC metabolites in unexplained cardiac deaths in young people,14 and a claim of a 4.8 times increased risk of myocardial infarction (MI) in the first hour after cannabis smoking,15 but given the meteoric increase in cannabis usage over the past five decades, one might expect a commensurate public health signal, which has been quite unapparent in epidemiological studies.16,17 Cannabis smoking did decrease exercise tolerance in angina.18 While increased all-causation death rates after first MI in cannabis smokers were initially claimed,19
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