Dennis RomeroBad news for Los Angeles, the medical marijuana capital of the nation.
A new study says using weed could more than double your chance of having a stroke. Maybe.
According to the fresh research from the University of Auckland presented to an American Stroke Association meeting in Hawaii this week …
… a look at 160 stroke victims ages 18 to 55 found they were 2.3 times more likely to have cannabis in their systems than not.
But, and this is a huge, Kardashian-sized BUT, researchers were unable to distinguish between marijuana and tobacco because those patients who had weed in their systems also smoked cigarettes.
And tobacco has already been linked to higher incidences of stroke.
Credit: Alejandro D / Flickr
Researchers looked at the subjects' urine samples to determine what they had smoked. So is the kush or Carltons?
It's not clear, but P. Alan Barber, the study's lead investigator, has his hunch:
We believe it is the cannabis and not tobacco. This may prove difficult given the risks of bias and ethical strictures of studying the use of an illegal substance. However, the high prevalence of cannabis use in this cohort of younger stroke patients makes this research imperative.
He recommends caution for the cannabis nation:
People need to think twice about using cannabis.
Yeah? No. We tried …
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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