A recent study released by a prominent cardiology organization found that regular cannabis users are more likely to suffer heart attacks than people who don’t use the substance.

In a news release issued on March 17, the American College of Cardiology released findings of a retrospective study combined with a meta-analysis of 12 other studies.

Published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), the retrospective study found that users of cannabis younger than age 50 had a sixfold higher chance of suffering than people who do not use the substance, while the meta-analysis showed that cannabis users have a 50 percent higher risk of suffering heart failure, according to the news release.

Noting that marijuana usage has been on the rise across the United States as some states have made the drug legal to use recreationally, researcher Ibrahim Kamel of Boston University likened cannabis to smoking cigarettes.

“Asking about cannabis use should be part of clinicians’ workup to understand patients’ overall cardiovascular risk, similar to asking about smoking cigarettes,” he said in a statement. “At a policy level, a fair warning should be made so that the people who are consuming cannabis know that there are risks.”

For the retrospective study, the team, which used data from the TriNetX global health database, looked at participants aged 50 and under who had no major heart problems and healthy blood pressure levels on the outset of their research efforts. They also had no history of coronary artery disease, did not use tobacco, and had normal cholesterol levels.

The meta-analysis included 12 prior studies, including more than 93,000 cannabis users and 4.5 million people who do not use it, the researchers said. One study was carried out in India, one was done in Canada, and the remainder were performed in the United States.

“When the researchers pooled the data from all studies and analyzed it together, they found a significant positive association, with active cannabis users being 1.5 times as likely to suffer a heart attack compared with those who aren’t current users,” the news release said.

But Kamel said that people “should have some caution in interpreting the findings in that cannabis consumption is usually associated with other substances such as cocaine or other illicit drugs that are not accounted for,” adding that patients should tell doctors about their cannabis usage.

A 2024 study in the Journal of the American Heart Association, which surveyed 434,000 adults of nearly all ages, found that people who consume marijuana are more likely to suffer coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart attack. They singled out individuals who smoke marijuana as having heart-related issues.

“Cannabis use is associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes, with heavier use ... associated with higher odds of adverse outcomes,” the study authors concluded, adding that “smoking, the predominant method of cannabis use, may pose additional cardiovascular risks as a result of inhalation of particulate matter.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using cannabis can increase the heart rate and can immediately raise blood pressure. It cautioned that more research is needed to determine a more clear idea of how it impacts the cardiovascular system, however.