No matter your opinion on the different kind of recreational drugs out there, they are illegal. You may however still encounter them through friends, school, college, or social events.

The choice to use illegal drugs is a personal one, a choice your hospital team and LHM cannot back you up on not only because its illegal (though that is a big part of it) but also because of how dangerous they are to someone with half a working heart. Especially illegal stimulant drugs.

Stimulant drug is a broad title for all drugs both prescription and illegal. They are sometimes called ‘uppers’ because they increase a few things in the body. Firstly, they speed up your nervous system and this increases the activity in your brain. They also raise your blood pressure, heart rate and respiration. Raising your heart rate is particularly dangerous for someone with half a working heart, this can cause heart irregularities.

Ecstasy, amphetamines and cocaine are examples of illegal stimulant drugs.

Caffeine and nicotine are legal, but they are also stimulants. It is good to remember your heart even when taking legal stimulants.

Many young people in the UK smoke cannabis, and though it is legal in many places around the world it is still a class B drug in the UK. It has been made legal for some medicinal uses but having half a working heart isn’t one of them.

Cannabis is both a stimulant and depressant drug, it can be dangerous if you have half a working heart as it also increases your heart rate and raises your blood pressure.

You may have heard the phrase ‘gateway drug’ when people speak of drugs like cannabis or ecstasy. The phrase suggests that these drugs can lead a person down a path to really hard-hitting drugs and usually when people say this they think of intravenous drugs.

Intravenous drugs are drugs that people take by injecting themselves with a needle. Injecting drugs has a lot of risks generally for people but when you have half a working heart you also have to think about the increased risk of endocarditis.  This is a bacterial infection in the heart which could be life threatening.

Written by Lexie Katsaitis

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Reviewed 2025

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