Recent studies have discovered evidence to support the claim that marijuana could be harmful to heart patients. There were two studies concerning this issue at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions. However, things took an unexpected turn after a group of researchers made an interesting claim. They said that cannabis users are less likely to experience kidney failure.

One of the presented studies found out that the patients who smoked cannabis and underwent the angioplasty procedure were more at risk of a stroke than those who didn’t smoke. The second study concerning cannabis and heart disease discussed heart attack survivors. This study explained that patients who had survived a heart attack and used marijuana were more at the risk of having another one.

Dr. Sang Gune Yoo, an internal medicine resident at the University of Michigan, and the author of one of the studies said that. “Marijuana is becoming more accessible, and patients should be aware of the increased risk after [angioplasty].” The US is currently having a wave of legalization across its various states. A lot of states voted to get marijuana legalized in recent elections.

With the new legalization comes increased responsibility for the public and health professionals. Although there lot of new uses and benefits of medical cannabis people still need totake care in the recreational use. Dr. Sang Gune Yoo did say that “While these are risks to be aware of, they shouldn’t deter patients from obtaining this lifesaving procedure.”

Right now 34 states, plus D.C., have made medical marijuana legal. The new findings of these studies have highlighted how important proper research in this area is. We are still very behind on the scientific research on cannabis. Acording to you the main reason for that is the federal illegal status.

Heart Patients in America:

Researches like these are extremely vital for America. Every year almost 805,000 Americans experience a heart attack making it the number one killer disease in the US. In addition, 605,000 of these, are first-time heart attacks. Heart disease is such a big issue in the US that each year thousands of patients undergo coronary angioplasty. It is a procedure to open blocked arteries to improve bloodflow of heart.

Moreover many other patients receive stents, a small, wire mesh tube which helps keep the artery open to avoid blockage. Dr. Yoo and his colleagues examined the data of 113,477 Michigan patients to find alink between marijuana and angioplasty outcomes.  In these patients 3,970 self-identified as marijuana users.

The researcher matched these patients with non users and found out that marijuana users were at a higher risk. The reported that pot users were more likely to experience bleeding (5.2 percent vs. 3.4 percent) and strokes (0.3 percent vs. 0.1 percent). They did however noticed a small detail that none of the marijuana users experienced kidney failure.

The second study analyzed data from a national database. The researchers linked the risk of second heart attack in patients who use cannabis and those who don’t after an artery-clearing procedure. They reported that people using cannabis were at higher risk of second heart attack 7.2 percent vs. 4.5 percent. However, they also reported that cannabis users has less heart disease risk factors like  hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol.

The two researches have some controversial results and medical professionals say that they need more research in the are before they can label something bad for human health. Consequently, Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a cannabis expert, instructor at Harvard Medical School explain that these two studies only had one interesting news which was lower kidney failure.

Newer reports suggest that the state legislature and Governor Cuomo will try once again to pass legislation approving recreational marijuana in the next session.  In the recent US elections, Four new states have passed legalization measures for marijuana. New York is surrounded by three of the states that declared an open market for marijuana. The state is soon to have severe budget gaps that might push people towards a better decision.

In addition, because the neighboring states have opted to legalize. People can just take drives to a different state to purchase legal cannabis. The distance is not that long and most drives only take less than an hour. Matthew Schweich, deputy director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said that since states like South Dakota and Montana passed legalization. We can safely say that it is not as prejudiced an issue as it used to be.

Schweich had some thoughts on the future of the New York state as well. He explained that “With each bordering state enacting this policy, it’s going to make it harder and harder for lawmakers in Albany to ignore this issue.” Moreover, he said that state lawmakers have a simple choice in front of them. They can either join the majority of the states or they can hand over the opportunity to collect millions of dollars in tax returns to other states.

Recent estimates quote that legalizing recreational cannabis in New York.  Has the potential to bring 300 million dollars in revenue to the state. However, another report titled “Getting into the Weeds about Potential Recreational Marijuana Revenues.” states that it will take a few years for the state to hit those returns.

Legalizing Cannabis:

The Senate sponsor of the bill to legalize marijuana in New York. State Senator Liz Krueger said that most of the people in the state of New York are wondering why the bill hasn’t been passed already.

“New York state has the largest marijuana market in the country, it’s just not legal,” Senator Krueger explained. “And so when people tell me ‘I don’t know if I love the idea of marijuana being on my streets’. I’m like, ‘hold your hat it’s already on your streets.'”

Marijuana licensing and revenue division are some of the main hurdles in the way of legalization. Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Senator Kruger agree that. The business of selling legal marijuana as well as the government revenue should go towards the betterment of low-income communities of color. Other people argue that the best use of marijuana funds is done by states like Nevada and Illinois. These states keep a big part of this revenue safe as a rainy day fund.

Capital Tonight, Majority Leader Peoples-Stokes stated the following as his answer to the use of marijuana income.”A significant portion of revenues from adult-use cannabis. Must be statutorily directed to provide ways to improve the communities and afford opportunities for the people most impacted by racial and economic oppression.”

The majority of the states follow the model suggested by Peoples-Stokes and people think that New York should too. The State is missing out on a big opportunity here and should legalize as soon as possible. Liz Krueger summarized the New Yorks’s position quite well.

“It will be no problem being a New York City resident and just plopping across the bridge or tunnel to buy marijuana,” Krueger said. “So why do we want to give them our revenue?”

 

The 2020 US elections brought some big changes in addition to a close political battle. Many states asked a public opinion on marijuana reforms through ballot papers. The number of public responses proves that marijuana now has widespread acceptance and needs to be legalized. The recent election had the highest voter turnout in the history of America. In addition to the close presidential race, marijuana was the one common thing that got unanimous votes. Voters from both red and blue majority states approved cannabis legalization.

Interestingly, candidates who got outperformed by marijuana in the elections declined to endorse it later on. This gives people a good idea of people endorsing cannabis in the 2022 elections. However, let’s stick to the present elections right now. we have some interesting results from all of the states that asked for marijuana legalization.

Arizona:

Starting off with Arizona, the adult-use marijuana legalization proposal here was approved by 1,951,877 total votes. What’s more interesting is that the same vote failed in this state in the last elections of 2016. This shows how drastically public opinions can change in just four years. Cannabis beat both of the presidential candidates President Trump (1,657,250) and President-elect Joe Biden (1,668,684).

However, Biden still refuses to back marijuana legalization unlike most of his political party. Instead, he wants a more modest reform in the state laws such as decriminalization of possession and record expungement. Trump on the other hand left the matter to states and said no to federal interference.

Mississippi:

The majority of voters in this state agreed on starting a medical cannabis program. They did, however, elected trump for the presidential office. More  Interestingly, cannabis also outperformed Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (700,501) and her Democratic challenger Mike Espy (559,508).

These results are from an Associated Press tally, which shows the current estimated total at 99 percent of expected votes processed.

Montana:

The measure to legalize marijuana in Montana got more approvals than the selected president Joe Biden. These votes also outperformed  Republican Governor-elect Greg Gianforte (328,543) and his Democratic opponent Mike Cooney (250,855). Moreover, the Republican Representative-elect Matt Rosendale and Democratic House candidate Pat Williams also got lesser votes than cannabis.

It is also important to mention that none of the candidates supported cannabis legalization and apparently that got more votes than them.

New Jersey:

In the state of New Jersey, the referendum to pass measures for the legalization of marijuana got an immense amount of votes. The number of votes here also exceeded the ones that Joe Biden and Trump got. In this stated the Democratic Sen. Cory Booker campaigned for marijuana legalization and got 2,433,494 votes.

South Dakota:

South Dakota voters passed the law for cannabis legalization for medical and recreational use. It also got more votes than both of the presidential candidates. The medical cannabis reform got more votes than rump (261,043), GOP Sen. Mike Rounds (276,232), and a proposal to legalize sports betting (239,620).

Oregon:

Oregon had various law changes to asses in this election. Voters made history in this election, they approved the law to decriminalize possession of all currently illicit drugs and legalize psilocybin mushrooms for therapeutic purposes. These decisions got more votes than any other candidate in this state. Only President-Elect Biden got more votes than marijuana reforms in this case.

Washington, D.C.:

The proposal to decriminalize a wide range of psychedelics like psilocybin and ayahuasca was approved in D.C.