Marijuana and Listing for Heart Transplant

Marijuana use has been considered a contraindication or relative contraindication for solid organ transplant listing at many centers, but practice patterns vary. Some centers approach frequent marijuana use differently than casual use and recreational marijuana differently than medical use. The issue of listing active marijuana users for solid organ transplant is often debated at transplant committee meetings and has been the subject of debate at academic conferences. The issue of whether patients who use marijuana should be eligible for transplant listing is widely covered in the media and is part of public discourse. Seven states have current laws that prohibit transplant centers from denying transplant listing based solely on a patient’s use of medical marijuana, and a similar bill was recently passed in the California legislature. There is no consensus within the transplant community about whether patients who actively use marijuana should be eligible for transplant listing. Investigators have described adverse events potentially related to marijuana consumption after organ transplantation, but there is a paucity of data on the outcomes of patients who used marijuana before transplant or safety data for marijuana use after transplantation. To assess current practice patterns and attitudes toward marijuana use in their patients, we conducted an anonymous, web-based survey of healthcare providers in the heart and lung transplant community.