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 development of alcohol use disorder (AUD) depends on various factors like genetics, drinking habits, and individual traits. Marijuana, though generally considered less risky, can still be addictive (as any substance can be). Further research is needed to better understand the relationship between marijuana use and addiction.
- Alcohol detox can take a significant amount of time and have heavy withdrawal symptoms, while cannabis withdrawal can last anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks.
- The study is only saying that decreasing the integrity or volume of white and gray matter may not be one of the ways that marijuana affects one’s health,” Maxwell said.
- On the other hand, self-harm and suicide are much more common among people who binge drink or drink frequently.
- While pot doesn’t seem to cause organ failure or fatal overdoses, alcohol kills more than 29,000 people each year due to liver disease and other forms of poisoning.
- With a clearer sense of your own drinking habits, you can decide on next steps.
- But various studies found marijuana doesn’t make users more aggressive or lead to crime.
Alcohol vs. Marijuana: Is One Safer Than the Other?
While the growing increase in medical and recreational cannabis legalization is providing a larger data set there isn’t enough tracking to link specific medical deaths to cannabis. For one thing, it depends on how long alcohol stays in your system. Some people get drunk faster than others, or have a naturally low tolerance to alcohol. That means you’ll have to drink more and more to feel the same effects. Alcohol addiction is more common2 than other drug addictions in the U.S. There’s no fixed timeline for how quickly or easily this condition develops.
Several studies link alcohol with violence, particularly at home. That has not been found for cannabis.
Alcohol is legal and can be purchased almost anywhere and everywhere. Cannabis can be addictive but this is more a psychological dependency than a physical one. It can be more habitual or emotional in nature and can be aided by therapy whats speed balling and not necessarily require outside intervention. Additionally, any deficits or issues caused by heavy cannabis use can be reversible.
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When it comes to what happens when you drink alcohol on accutane addiction profiles, risk of death or overdose, and links to cancer, car crashes, violence, and obesity, the research suggests that marijuana may be less of a health risk than alcohol. But despite eating over 600 extra calories when smoking, marijuana users generally don’t have higher body-mass indexes. In fact, studies suggest that regular smokers have a slightly reduced risk of obesity. Having a blood-alcohol level of at least 0.05%, on the other hand, increased that risk by 575%.
That doesn’t mean just legalization or prohibition, but regulation, taxes, and education as well. But how much does all of this information really tell policymakers or the public? It would matter if marijuana ends up substituting alcohol once pot is legalized (since a safer substance would be replacing a more dangerous one), but the research on that is still early. Unlike alcohol, Baler said, the effects of chronic marijuana use are not as well established. Animal studies have indicated some possible impact on reproduction.
On the surface, weed appears to be safer, but there’s simply not enough evidence to declare a winner. While being intoxicated with weed feels different than being intoxicated with alcohol, the two have roughly the same effect on your cognitive abilities, reflexes, and judgment. The immediate effects of weed can vary quite a bit from person to person.
„Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss,“ the researchers wrote in their paper, „and the level of consumption that minimizes health loss is zero.“ But experts are cautious to declare that marijuana is not harmful to the brain based on the evidence of this study. There’s plenty of research about alcohol’s long-term effect on your brain and overall health. The amount of research regarding marijuana’s long-term effect on brain health, however, is not so ample.
Graduating from medical school in 2004 and residency in 2008, Dr. Dugar has been a licensed physician for almost 20 years and has been leading the push for medical cannabis nationwide. Alcohol can cause cognitive impairment which can lead to poor judgment, decreased coordination, and memory loss and in some cases blackouts. There are some potential cardiovascular benefits with light-to-moderate use like 1-2 glasses of wine per day.
The harm score for marijuana would also likely rise after legalization, but probably not too much since pot use is already widespread. This may seem like a petty academic squabble, but it’s quite important as researchers and lawmakers try to advance more scientific approaches to drug policy. Finding the best method to evaluate the risks of drugs is much more complicated than assigning numeric rankings. Perhaps the biggest supporting evidence for this point is a 2010 study published in The Lancet that ranked fastest way to flush alcohol out of system 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.
Short-term effects
Additionally, there is evidence marijuana can worsen psychiatric issues for people who are predisposed to them, or bring them on at a younger age. Finally, Baler said, because the drug is typically smoked, it can bring on bronchitis, coughing and chronic inflammation of the air passages. In November 2017, a group of the nation’s top cancer doctors issued a statement asking people to drink less.
Medicinal Benefits of Marijuana
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 understand the distinct difference between alcohol and cannabis addiction. Weed can impact your memory and in some severe cases cause or exacerbate schizophrenia or psychosis.
Alcohol has been legal significantly longer compared to cannabis and some of these stigmas can impact people’s judgment about cannabis use. 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. Over time, it can temporarily decrease the prevalence of CB1 receptors which can cause memory issues but, overall, the compounds in cannabis including many of the terpenes can be neuroprotective. This means that they can help protect nerve cells from damage which can decrease your chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
