why is increased heart rate considered dangerous when it comes as a side effect of drugs (ie cocaine, marijuana) but considered beneficial and necessary when caused by aerobic exercise?

Question

I’ve even seen “increased risk of stroke” caused by this increase in heart rate. Something is not adding up here, why such a big difference?

In: 20

Answer 1

The problem is quantity of exercise.

Aerobic exercise like running is beneficial *in an appropriate amount.* Cocaine forcing your heart to beat as fast as if you were running isn’t good when you’re only healthy enough to run for a few minutes **but the cocaine forces it to keep going that fast for 5 hours nonstop.**

Aerobic exercise is good because you can stop once you’re reaching the end of your stamina and there’s potential for damage. A chemically-elevated heart rate doesn’t care about that. Once you do a given amount of drugs, you can’t turn off the effect. And the effect probably lasts WAY longer than you’d exercise with zero breaks. When’s the last time you exercised with zero rest for as long as a high lasts? Unless you’re in insanely good shape you probably can’t if you tried.