Cannabis use correlated with decreased mortality in trauma patients

Published in The American Surgeon in February 2022, this study compared outcome data from intensive care unit (ICU) adult trauma patients that tested positive for cannabis use (pMS, or positive marijuana, or THC screen), and those that tested negative for all drugs and alcohol.

The study reviewed records from 2017 of over 140,000 patients with over 23,000 of the patients testing positive for cannabis use. These results are "after controlling for known predictors of mortality including age, sex, injury severity, vital signs, and comorbidities."

"Patients with a pMS had decreased associated risk of mortality compared to nDS [negative test for ALL drugs and alcohol] patients, including subgroups of ICU and younger patients."

This means that  the recent cannabis users demonstrated lower death rates than patients that tested clean for all drugs and alcohol. The authors recommended a clinical study to confirm the results and determine the exact "pathophysiologic" basis for this correlation.

The abstract is available here at PubMed.gov.