A Report from Africa Illustrates the Harm of Heavy Marijuana Use
I came across a report of a medical case in Africa where a man developed epilepsy after heavily abusing marijuana for many years. Through scans and other tests, other causes were ruled out and the epilepsy was attributed to his marijuana use. But while that is definitely alarming, that wasn’t the part of the story that startled me. It was this passage in that report that was so surprising:
Rare cases of hemorrhagic (produced by uncontrollable bleeding) and ischemic (caused by restricted blood flow) strokes attributed to acute use of high doses of marijuana have been described in the literature. Chronic marijuana smoking is also considered as a cerebrovascular (related to brain and its blood vessels) risk factor. Stroke in marijuana abusers occurs mostly in young adults without other cardiovascular risk factors, who are not taking other drugs, and who have recently increased their use of marijuana. The onset of symptoms during a period of high marijuana consumption, age, and the absence of other cardiovascular risk factors in this case, corresponds to the clinical characteristics of marijuana-induced stroke.
There are many people in our country who are saying or implying that marijuana abuse is harmless, both mentally and physically. There is lots of evidence on the other side of this issue. I understand that this report states that the incidence of stroke is rare, however, there is damage occurring before a stroke results or the stroke would never happen.
We just want to bring you this information so you could think it over.
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