It is safe to say that most forms and variations of smoking weed are generally socially acceptable. Whether you desire to light up at a park with your friends, smoke a bowl before a yoga class, or get violently high and watch a live action Disney movie, recreational marijuana has developed into an activity we all can enjoy. Yet regardless of the normalization of weed, its effect on our health should not be swept under the rug. People may neglect to mention their intake to their doctors because hey, it’s like having a glass of wine at night, they don’t care about that right? Wrong! Recent studies have shown that smoking weed can reduce the efficacy of anesthesia of patients undergoing surgery.
If you are high while reading this, and currently feel yourself falling into a semi-paranoid state, contemplating when your next surgery will be, let me dispel any rumors that WebMD might give you. In an interview with the Harvard Independent, Dr. David Hepner, the Medical Director of the Weiner Center for Preoperative Evaluation for the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and associate Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School emphasized in an interview, how important it is to be honest and open with your anesthesiologist and surgeon about what your weed consumption looks like. It is important to share factors such as your last smoke date, frequency of smoking, and favorite form of smoking.
“Both the marijuana and the anesthesia are targeting similar receptors in the brain, so therefore they can interact in a way that makes the narcotic less effective. [With smoking weed,] in the beginning your body could see an increase in heart rate and an increase in blood pressure, and overtime, these could both decrease,” said Dr. Hepner. In his article “Coming Clean: Your anesthesiologist needs to know about marijuana use before surgery,” Hepner explained that people see weed very casually now, but the absence of reporting it causes patients to have complications during surgery. According to the CDC, 48.2 million Americans in 2018 smoked weed at some point, proving its casual consumption and increasingly consistent usage. It is thus vitally important to educate ourselves on how cannabis consumption interacts with components such as anesthesia to ensure safety and well-being.
Because of the way our receptors process both marijuana and anesthesia, the anesthetic is much less effective. It is the anesthesiologist’s job to monitor their patient’s factors such as their heart rate and blood pressure, emphasizing the importance of knowing where inconsistencies are coming from. Hepner also explained that needing more anesthesia or opioids during and after surgery interferes with the patient’s heart rate and blood pressure, making it less ideal to opt for higher anesthetic doses. Who wants to be the person who actually experienced what is written in the fine print?
In addition to affecting patients on the operating table, the “holy lettuce” has effects on post-operative care as well. In an article from the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Dr. Elyad Ekrami explained that adults who use cannabis both acutely and chronically may experience an increased level of postoperative pain in the days following surgery, which is why these individuals may intake more opioids to manage discomfort and risk addiction. Dr. Ekrami found that cannabis users consume about 7% more opioids after surgery than non-weed smokers. She also noted that weed smokers experience 14% more pain the day after surgery, which alone should deter you from lighting up before laying down in the operating room.
Dr. Hepner stated that patients should report “anything that has an effect on your mentation” to their doctors, including substances that have a range of THC, CBD, or any other cannabinoids. Dr. Hepner advises everyone to alert their physicians of any mind-altering substances they intake, as well as any other non-prescription medication or supplements that do not typically make it onto medical charts, like naturopathic or homeopathic medicines.
Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule 1 substance, making it harder to perform scientific studies without spending copious amounts of time dealing with the FDA’s barriers to proper research access, and generating a significant lack of information when it comes to weed and anesthesia. Yet the Biden Administration recently passed a law called the ASA-Supported Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act, making it easier for researchers to get through FDA approval for their cannabis studies. Hopefully, this law will open opportunities for weed research to catch up with its usage rates and give us more information about how best to treat patients who chronically smoke weed.
Do not let this news mislead you: weed still has the same benefits that it always has. Yet it is imperative that users disclose their marijuana habits to their doctors regardless of how negligible it may feel. Medically, it is highly relevant.
With that said, it might be time to start asking your mom not to come to your doctor’s appointments. Come on now, you are in college.
Maddy Tunnell ’26 (maddytunnell@college.harvard.edu) saw a post about weed and anesthesia on Instagram and immediately wondered why no one knows about it.