While there are negative benefits, cannabis does have many medicinal benefits including treatment of pain, nausea, issues with eating or keeping down food, and can help treat anxiety and depression. Overall, cannabis use can be healthier and less addictive than alcohol use. Many of the issues have to do with legality and preconceived judgment of cannabis. Alcohol has been legal significantly longer compared to cannabis and some of these stigmas can impact people’s judgment about cannabis use. Considering the statistics you just read about marijuana-based crashes, 40 percent of car crash deaths in the US involve alcohol, and 30 percent of deaths involve alcohol above the legal limit for driving.
Article preview
But cigarette smoking plays a complicated role in studying the impact of marijuana smoke, Baler said. Marijuana smokers tend to smoke much less than cigarette smokers, as some may smoke one joint a few times a week. Drinking can lead to alcoholic liver disease, which can progress to fibrosis of the liver, which in turn can potentially lead to liver cancer, Murray said. Alcohol is more likely than marijuana to interact with other drugs. “You can die binge-drinking five minutes after you’ve been exposed to alcohol. That isn’t going to happen with marijuana,” said Ruben Baler, a health scientist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. There’s a delay in when you feel edibles because it can take time for the THC to be absorbed into your bloodstream.
The cannabis industry is making marijuana as readily available thanks to recreational legalization; it could be as common as alcohol. While there are some issues to the abuse of cannabis they are nowhere near as hazardous as alcoholism and the toll of alcohol on the body. Alcohol is also highly addictive and over time addiction can increase your chances of developing health issues and even a physical dependency. Alcohol is not only more addictive it also can cause more lasting damage to your health than cannabis. While excessive marijuana use can take a negative toll on your health many of these side effects can be reversible. The drug policy experts I talked to about Nutt’s study generally agreed that his style of analysis and ranking misses some of the nuance behind the harm of certain drugs.
Cannabis policy reforms in the Americas: A comparative analysis of Colorado, Washington, and Uruguay
Remember, consuming weed and alcohol together can make you feel either more or less intoxicated than you would if you were using just one or the other. Adding alcohol to a low dose of THC impaired driving simulator scores by 21 percent. Adding alcohol to a high dose of THC impaired driving simulator scores by 17 percent. Those who consumed just alcohol had worse cognitive functioning than those who only consumed THC. Those who combined the two had reduced cognitive performance than those who only consumed alcohol.
- Even heavy marijuana abuse can at worst cause schizophrenia in people with a history of mental illness.
- Generally speaking, weed tends to come with fewer risks than alcohol, but there are a lot of factors to consider.
- This means that for people taking drugs or medications while drinking, the alcohol can increase or decrease levels of the active drug in the body.
- Alcohol can cause cognitive impairment which can lead to poor judgment, decreased coordination, and memory loss and in some cases blackouts.
- This can happen any time you’ve consumed to much weed — with or without alcohol.
- In comparison, the number of deaths caused by marijuana is almost zero.
Green Health Docs’ mission is to combat the nation’s opioid epidemic. As a team of pain medicine physicians, anesthesiologists, and surgeons, we knew that there had to be a better way to help patients. Our goal was to give patients easy strongest vodka in the world access to medical cannabis as an alternative to traditional pain medications, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, and other addictive and harmful drugs. Prolonged alcohol use can lead to physical dependence, where the body becomes reliant on alcohol to function normally.This can cause the shakes and can affect your ability to lead a normal life.
Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now
A lot of research has also linked adolescent marijuana use with a range of negative consequences, including cognitive deficiencies and worse educational outcomes. While it’s not clear whether marijuana’s role with these outcomes is cause-and-effect, experts generally agree that people younger than their mid-20s should avoid pot. Health risks are just one way to measure whether marijuana is safer than alcohol.
When you drink heavily, it can impair your ability to create new memories. Over 50% of frequent binge drinkers reported at least one time in the past year when they blacked out and forgot where they were or what they did when they were drinking. It’s never a good idea to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but especially both. Here we present both sides of the debate so you can decide for yourself. If a person chooses to buy weed or hemp online or at a smoke shop, be sure to choose a product with a label that shows they have paid an independent outside company to assure the purity of their products, he said. “First, I want to commend her for giving up alcohol,” said Grinspoon, who is on the board of the advocacy group Doctors for Drug Policy Reform, which addresses cannabis, psychedelic and drug regulation in general.
Cannabis use and dependence: Public health and public policy
This makes the task of building scientific drug policies very challenging. Perhaps the biggest supporting evidence for this point is a 2010 study published in The Lancet that ranked alcohol as the most dangerous drug in the United Kingdom, surpassing heroin, crack cocaine, and marijuana. That study has drawn widespread media attention, appearing in outlets like the Washington Post, the Guardian, the New Republic, and here at Vox. The research, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, was published Wednesday in the journal Addiction. The survey is a highly regarded source of estimates of tobacco, alcohol and drug use in the United States. Keep in mind that combining the two may be linked to a decline in cognitive function and an increased risk of dependence.
Excessive alcohol use can cause brain damage and degenerative conditions like Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, which can cause severe memory impairment and other cognitive deficits. It can even decrease brain matter and this damage can be permanent. Suffice to say that alcohol causes more deaths due to violence, accidents, car crashes, and disease than cannabis to the point where there are ever-growing statistics tracking these numbers.
And, while there is a lot of positive talk about cannabis, there are risks—especially if you’re over 55. More than half of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal. While alcohol remains the most-used drug in the US, daily cannabis use has actually outpaced daily drinking, according to a study following four decades of consumption trends. There is no known medical use for consumed alcohol, but there are health benefits observed in moderate drinkers, including lower rates of cardiovascular disease and possibly fewer colds, Murray said.
Seventy-five percent of Americans believe alcohol consumption negatively affects society. But on the flip side, 49 percent of Americans believe that cannabis use affects society positively, per a recent Gallup poll. As for marijuana, whose legalization for medical uses has been a matter of strong public policy debate for years, there is ample evidence that beneficial compounds can be found in the plant.