Marijuana And Breakthrough Cases Of COVID-19 In NYC: New Study

NEW YORK CITY — New Yorkers suffering from a dependence on marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, opioids or tobacco could be more likely to suffer a breakthrough case of coronavirus, according to a new study.

A national study published Oct. 5 in the journal World Psychiatry found that breakthrough infections were seen in 3.6 percent of vaccinated people without substance use disorder, while 7 percent of those with the disorder experienced them.

A breakthrough infection is one contracted by a vaccinated person more than two weeks after a second dose.

"In our study, the overall risk of COVID-19 infection among vaccinated SUD patients was low, highlighting the effectiveness and the need for full vaccination in this population," researchers wrote in the study. "However, our findings document that this group remains a vulnerable one even after vaccination, confirming the importance for vaccinated patients with [substance abuse disorder] to continue to take protective preventive measures against the infection."

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The study comes with a significant caveat — researchers did not dig into the causal relationship between substance dependency and breakthrough cases, only the correlation.

In fact, when researchers quantified and discarded factors such as economic hardships and underlying health conditions, any heightened risk of coming down with COVID-19 vanished.

That said, the study showed marijuana users at the greatest risk for breakthrough cases among people with substance use disorder, at 7.8 percent.

So is it something in the weed itself? Or in the habits of the marijuana-dependent community?

A National Institute on Drug Abuse spokesperson told Newsweek, "Individual behavior patterns and social conditions may be a major contributing factor above and beyond simply exhibiting problematic substance use patterns, such as lack of access to reliable information, sharing joints, etc."

In New York City, 97 percent of all new COVID-19 cases were among unvaccinated people, according to figures available in August.

The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

With Justin Heinze/Patch

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