There’s a study that’s floating around today linking marijuana use to heart complications, with some reports saying that marijuana use is directly linkable to cardiovascular death. It’s sure to get even more traction over the next few days, but here’s a few things you should know about why this study is a load of crap.
Even at face value based off of the limited info from the press release, the study seems flawed. For starters, their sample of 1,979 people was taken from French addiction data from people who had self-reported health complications from cannabis use. Even out of that number only two percent were cardiovascular complications. But, of course, it doesn’t have much merit.
The study doesn’t single out those cannabis users who were also users of other drugs, nor do they account for tobacco users in the study – and tobacco use is a very well-known and major of cardiovascular issues, especially within the age group they studied. And come on now, we’re talking about young French here. They smoke cigarettes like chimneys over there to begin with.
Not only that, but statistics show that two percent of any population of that size would have cardiovascular issues, marijuana use or not. Cardiovascular disease are the leading cause of death in this country with about 600,000 deaths each year.
Not to mention the fact that there are millions of pot users in the world that aren’t dying of heart attacks on the regular. Even at just a 2 percent rate, we would have heard about this by now. But the French scientists say that because of the plant’s illegality people are likely underreporting it to hospitals.
Finally, the study was funded by the French Drug Agency and the French InterMinisterial mission for the fight against drugs and addiction (Mission interministérielle de lutte contre les drogues et toxicomanies) – a government agency bent on proving that all drugs are destructive, addictive and should not be tolerated. Government scientists who want to keep their jobs usually don’t report findings opposite of the positions of their financiers.