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. 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.
Weed Addiction Vs Alcohol Addiction
- He also points out that since the legalization of marijuana, there has been increased hospitalizations in psychiatric and inpatient hospital settings.
- Both alcohol and marijuana can be dangerous substances, and addiction is a potential risk regardless of perceived safety.
- However, is available necessarily a sign that it’s better for you?
- For example, smoking is rough on your lungs, but this risk doesn’t apply to edibles.
- There are countless cannabis products on the market and a number of consumption options, from vaping to edibles.
Studies have found that these effects can persist for several weeks after stopping marijuana use. There may also be a link between daily weed use and poorer verbal memory in adults who start smoking at a young age. “The risk from driving under the influence of both alcohol and cannabis is greater than the risk of driving under the influence of either alone,” the authors of a 2009 review wrote in the American Journal of Addiction. The US Department of Health lists alcohol as a known human carcinogen.
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. 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 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).
Sian Ferguson is a freelance health and cannabis writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. She’s passionate about empowering readers to take care of their mental and physical health through science-based, empathetically delivered information. Cannabis addiction is surprisingly common, however, according to 2015 study. Weed seems to have fewer long-term risks than alcohol, but again, there’s a huge discrepancy in the amount of research on weed compared with alcohol. Before getting into comparing alcohol and weed, it’s important to understand some of the factors that make the comparison tricky. There probably isn’t a perfect way to evaluate and present all drug harms.
How to handle a green out
They may weaken the effectiveness of your medication or increase your risk for certain side effects. But if you do decide to mix the two, start slow and keep track of how much you’re consuming of each. When mixing weed and alcohol, there are a lot of other variables to consider in addition to which one you use first.
What are the Main Differences Between the Effects, Risks & Safety of Alcohol vs Weed?
Providers who advertise with us must be verified by our Research Team and we clearly mark their status as advertisers. It’s important to find a program that can support your personal goals for recovery. If you need help with marijuana addiction, learn more about treatment at marijuana rehabs. But it’s up to you to decide if marijuana products will benefit you in the long run. Thinking about your relationship with substances is always a great place to start. Set in a luxurious home, Beachway Therapy Center offers a holistic treatment approach and a variety of therapies for addiction and mental health.
Years of studies on excessive alcohol use demonstrates its negative effects on brain and general health. Kent Hutchison, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-director of the CU Change Lab, co-authored a study that serves as a conversation starter for which substance is worse. In the study, published in the journal Addiction, researchers looked at brain scans of 853 adults between the ages of 18 and 55 and 439 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18. Each of the participants reported their alcohol and marijuana use. 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.
Compared with sober participants, the intoxicated volunteers were found to have reduced functioning in the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain linked with moderating social behavior. That reduced functioning was also linked with aggressive behavior. The pot smokers’ brains did what is similar to xanax but over the counter? not show a reduction or change in either gray or white matter in Hutchison’s study. When gray and white brain matter is reduced, cognitive impairment and memory loss can occur.
Is Alcohol Worse Than Weed?
Speaking of, let’s examine the addictive tendencies of these substances. While the death toll may not be the same, the effect on drivers has been sufficiently observed. While, due to alcohol being legal for decades and drunk driving being illegal for a significant amount of time the law has preset blood alcohol levels to dictate how much alcohol is too much in your system salvia trip explained while driving. However, this is low compared to 40% of all car crashes that directly involve alcohol. This post will elaborate on the impacts of alcohol vs. weed on your health, body, driving skills, fatality numbers, and the toll they can take on your life. This post will explore all the differences between these two intoxicants and explore their impact on your health and society at large.
Long-term alcohol consumption can produce physiological changes in the brain such as tolerance and physical dependence. It’s possible to develop an emotional and/or physical dependence on both substances. As with the short-term effects of alcohol intermediate familial subtype and weed, the long-term effects differ from person to person.
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. It can also be completely out of your system in 1-3 months with you returned to normal levels and function. Cannabis is more likely to lead to a use disorder where you are habitually or are psychologically addicted to cannabis and want to use it. That roughly translates to cannabis is not directly related to any increase in the chances of death or has a significant impact on your lifespan.
Many cannabis users report the “munchies,” a phenomenon where pot users have increased appetites and cravings while high. Because cannabis affects cannabinoid receptors in the olfactory bulb in the brain, food can smell and taste more intense. THC also increases the release of dopamine (which makes eating more enjoyable) and the hormone ghrelin, which stimulates hunger. Both weed and alcohol can carry a potential for misuse and addiction, but this appears to be more common with alcohol. Generally speaking, weed tends to come with fewer risks than alcohol, but there are a lot of factors to consider.
Both weed and alcohol, together and on their own, are also potentially addictive and can lead to dependence and misuse. If you’ve mixed weed and alcohol and are having a bad reaction, it’s probably because alcohol seems to make the high from using weed stronger. This can happen any time you’ve consumed to much weed — with or without alcohol. Whether marijuana is more addictive than alcohol is a complex question, and there’s no simple answer.