Daily Weed Use and Heart Attack Risk: What the Big 2024 Study Found

Smoking weed every day is linked to a higher risk of heart attack and stroke, according to a large 2024 study out of Massachusetts General Hospital: daily users had 25% higher odds of a heart attack and 42% higher odds of a stroke than non-users. That's a real signal, not a scare headline, and it matters more now that cannabis use keeps climbing, both recreational and medical. So, can weed actually raise your heart attack risk?

Plenty of people think of cannabis as a pretty safe substance, but research suggests it may have a significant impact on the heart and blood vessels. Knowing which factors push that risk up is essential if you want to make informed decisions about how you use it.

What the research says about weed and heart attacks

More people are using cannabis than ever, whether for its claimed medical benefits or just to get high. But new research shows the habit may not be as harmless as many assumed, especially when it comes to your heart. A recent study by specialists at Massachusetts General Hospital sheds light on what regular marijuana use could be doing to your cardiovascular system.

Higher risk of heart attack and stroke in daily users

The researchers found that daily cannabis users had 42% higher odds of having a stroke and 25% higher odds of having a heart attack compared with people who don't use cannabis at all.

The risk went up the more often people used, and it showed up in frequent users as well as occasional ones.

Does cannabis raise heart risk even in healthy people?

The most worrying part: the higher heart attack risk showed up even in people with no history of heart disease who didn't use other substances like tobacco. That challenges the common belief that cannabis is safer than alcohol or cigarettes.

How cannabis smoke compares to tobacco smoke

As the study's lead author, Abra Jeffers, put it: “Cannabis smoke is not all that different from tobacco smoke, except for the psychoactive drug: THC versus nicotine.” In other words, the cardiovascular risks of smoking weed could look a lot like the risks of smoking tobacco, which is a big deal at a time when cannabis use is rising and tobacco use is falling.

Daily weed use and cardiovascular disease

These findings line up with other studies linking daily marijuana use to more coronary heart disease, heart attacks and strokes.

Robert Page II, a professor of clinical pharmacy and physical medicine at the University of Colorado's Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, has backed up that connection.

Who was in the study and what data it used

The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, analyzed data from about 430,000 adults collected between 2016 and 2020 through the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a large US health survey. Participants were 18 to 74 years old, with an average age of 45. About 90% didn't use marijuana, and more than 63% had never used tobacco.

Does it matter how you consume weed?

Among current cannabis users, 74% said smoking was their most common way of using it, and only about 4% of participants used marijuana daily.

Specifically, men under 55 and women under 65 who used marijuana had 36% higher odds of heart disease, heart attack and stroke combined, whether or not they used tobacco.

Why more research is still needed

These results are significant, but experts agree more research is needed to confirm how cannabis affects heart health. Even so, the evidence suggests frequent marijuana use may be bad for your heart, and that's a risk worth taking seriously.

Weed and heart attack risk: what about CBD?

Worth pointing out: the risk in this study appears to be tied to using the cannabis plant itself, mostly smoked, not to oils made with CBD (that link goes to CosechaLibre's store in Argentina), the non-intoxicating compound known for its medicinal potential.

That suggests CBD could be a lower-risk option for people interested in cannabis's therapeutic side without the risks linked to smoking THC-heavy weed, though CBD's long-term effects on the heart haven't been studied nearly as much.