Is alcohol or marijuana safer?

There’s a delay in when you feel edibles because it can take time for the THC to be absorbed into your bloodstream. Edibles need to be digested and it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours to understand how you feel. Alcohol can contribute to social and behavioral issues, including aggression, mood swings, outbursts, relationship issues, and legal troubles. Alcohol is legal and can be purchased almost anywhere and everywhere. However, is available necessarily a sign that it’s better for you? While both are intoxicants they can affect the body differently and can also impact your health differently.

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The researchers reported that combining THC and alcohol consistently impaired driving performance, with worse performance during nighttime simulations. A number of recent studies also focus on how combining weed and alcohol affects your driving. This is because alcohol increases the absorption of weed’s main psychoactive ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Occasionally mixing alcohol and weed — also known as crossfading — likely won’t lead to major health problems.

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In short, used moderately (in the case of alcohol) or under the direction of a health care provider (in places where medical marijuana is legal), these substances may have positive health effects. However, they may vary based on who is using either substance, how much they are using, and in what ways they’re using it. But as is often the case, it’s clear that heavy use of either drug may lead to serious health risks. New research suggests the risks of even moderate or light drinking may outweigh the benefits. In June, the World Health Organization said that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.

How do cannabis drinks differ from edibles?

Keep in mind that there are dozens of factors to account for, including how the substances affect your heart, brain, and behavior, and how likely you are to get hooked. There is also a need for more research into the interaction between alcohol and cannabis, Hutchison said, especially because people who use these substances tend to use both. https://sober-home.org/5-key-differences-between-crack-and-cocaine/ On the other side of the coin, researchers have found that cannabinoids — which are the active compounds in marijuana — could help to prevent migraine, and a more recent study linked marijuana use to an increased sex drive. Across the U.S., however, it is increasingly becoming legalized for both medicinal and recreational purposes.

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Additionally, any deficits or issues caused by heavy cannabis use can be reversible. It’s important to understand the distinct difference https://sober-home.org/ between alcohol and cannabis addiction. Cannabis can affect your ability to pay attention, memory, and decision-making.

All of this means that doctors need to ask patients with diabetes about their use of marijuana and other substances. During that time, about 9% of adults with diabetes said they’d used cannabis at least once over the prior month, and the rate rose from 7.7% in 2021 to 10.3% in 2022, a 33.7% rise. If a respondent said that he spent “a great deal” of his time using marijuana and that he sometimes used more than he planned, for example, that would be enough to qualify for the CUD label. Likewise if he reported that he sometimes had “a strong urge” to use marijuana and that he increased his dose to compensate for tolerance.

In contrast, Carroll says research shows rates of interpersonal or domestic violence are actually “lower in people who smoke marijuana than people that don’t.” The Well is Northwell Health’s commitment to the future of health care. In this time of information overabundance, much of which is inaccurate, unhelpful, or even difficult to understand, Northwell Health is on a mission to make a difference as an honest, trusted, and caring partner. The site connects with consumers to provide them with personalized content that reduces their stress, makes them laugh, and ultimately feel more confident and capable on their healthcare journey. The research shouldn’t be taken as the be-all and end-all in the great debate over whether cannabis is bad for the brain.

If you’re experiencing an emergency, please call 911 or visit our Resource Hub to view a list of 24-hour support services and hotlines. It’s a tough call, but based on the peer-reviewed science, there appears to be a clear answer. Heavy drug use is never ideal — and marijuana is no different in this regard. People’s responses to each substance can vary greatly, so what seems safer for one person might not work for someone else. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), 15 million people in the United States deal with it. While one person might feel relaxed while drunk, another might feel restless.

For one thing, the study looked only at marijuana use in the past 30 days, and the participants had fairly low levels of pot consumption. In addition, Hutchison told Live Science, there could be subtle brain changes that the study’s measurements could not capture. “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. While both are intoxicants used recreationally, their legality, patterns of use and long-term effects on the body make the two drugs difficult to compare. Weed can also trigger temporary feelings of paranoia and hostility, but it’s not yet clear whether those symptoms are linked with an increased risk of long-term psychosis.

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. Take my old belief that “anything liquid won’t make me gain weight” as an example. My belief came from the observation of people drinking smoothies for weight loss and the experience of losing water weight after a heavy drinking session.

The use of marijuana, however, seemed to have no significant long-term effects on brain structure. Get helpful tips and guidance for everything from fighting inflammation to finding the best diets for weight loss…from exercises to build a stronger core to advice on treating cataracts. PLUS, the latest news on medical advances and breakthroughs from Harvard Medical School experts.

Some people may consider both substances similar because of how they make you feel. People attribute it to be a social lubricant that allows people to stave off social anxiety and be more outgoing and talkative. It’s important to note that when cannabis gets legalized many people may use cannabis semi-legally by consuming illegally purchased cannabis which can lead to them consuming more than standard dosages.

In this story, each blind man touches a different part of the elephant and draws his conclusion about what the elephant is like. One thinks it’s like a wall, another like a snake, and another like a tree trunk, based on the part they touched. Like the blind men and the elephant, we only get a piece of reality that is just a perception.

There are also more than 100 different cannabinoids, which are substances found in the cannabis plant. So, the answer to that question may depend on which strain of cannabis you’re smoking or what mix of cannabinoids are in it. When it comes to addiction profiles and risk of death or overdose combined with ties to cancer, car crashes, violence, and obesity, the research suggests that marijuana may be less of a health risk than alcohol. It’s impossible to say whether drinking alcohol or using marijuana causes violence, but several studies suggest a link between alcohol and violent behavior. Before getting into more about safety, it may be helpful to understand some of the key differences between alcohol and marijuana relating to this discussion.

Jon Caulkins, a drug policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University, gave the example of an alien race visiting Earth and asking which land animal is the biggest. If the question is about weight, the African elephant is the biggest land animal. And if the question is about length, the reticulated python is the biggest.

For instance, there’s some research that indicates that for some types of alcohol, a moderate amount could provide protective effects against heart disease for some folks. Similarly, for certain medical conditions such as glaucoma or for those undergoing chemotherapy, marijuana can possess therapeutic properties. These positive effects, however, aren’t necessarily generalizable to everyone who use either substance, nor is it recommended to start using either to reap potential benefits without medical guidance or advice. In November 2017, a group of the nation’s top cancer doctors issued a statement asking people to drink less. Keep in mind that there are dozens of factors to account for when comparing the health effects of alcohol and marijuana, including how the substances affect your heart, brain, and behavior, and how likely you are to get hooked. The researchers looked at brain scans from about 850 substance-using adults ages 18 to 55 and about substance-using 440 teens ages 14 to 19, all of whom reported varying levels of alcohol and cannabis use.

In contrast, “we don’t see any statistically significant effects of cannabis on gray matter or white matter,” Hutchison said. Marijuana use, however, appeared to have no impact on the structure of gray or white matter in either teenagers or adults. Although for palliative care, he said, “that would be a different realm of medicine,” in which the goal is to drug a person so they do not feel pain.

1. With marijuana legalization on the rise, an increasing number of studies are exploring the drug’s potential harms and benefits.
2. On the surface, weed appears to be safer, but there’s simply not enough evidence to declare a winner.
3. Remember, consuming weed after drinking alcohol might make you feel less intoxicated, which can lead you to drink more than you usually would.
4. While he may be right about that, his own take errs on the side of hyperbole by equating “cannabis use disorder” (CUD), a broad concept encompassing a wide range of behavior, with addiction, an especially severe subset of CUD.

But even light to moderate drinking can have hazards, like an increased risk for cancer, for instance. Alcohol is a carcinogen, contributing to 5.6% of cancers and 4% of cancer deaths nationwide, according to the National Cancer Institute, which also points out that as little as one drink a day can increase your cancer odds. Excessive alcohol can also flood the body with toxins that may harm your heart, liver, pancreas, gut, lungs, kidneys and immune system, says the NIAAA. The health impact of any drug can depend on how it’s used, who’s using it, how much is used, and under what circumstances.