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Marijuana vs Alcohol: Which Is Really Worse for Your Health?

what is worse alcohol or weed

Now while cannabis deaths caused by disease, illness or drug interactions there are some data points regarding accidents, specifically car accidents. Legalization has provided data points about the potential increase in accidents related to cannabis. 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.

Are Edibles Better Than Alcohol?

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. To begin, the alcohol that can be purchased in stores is highly regulated, with a measurement of alcohol by volume printed on each container. Marijuana, on the other hand, has only more recently started to be regulated. A few states have legalized both recreational and medicinal marijuana, while others have only legalized medicinal strains.

what is worse alcohol or weed

All things considered, alcohol’s effects seem markedly more extreme — and riskier — than marijuana’s.

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. They both have a history of impairing judgment and can directly increase your chances of having an accident. There currently isn’t a Blood Marijuana Level federally recognized but as more states adjust to legal cannabis use we can have clearer and more stringent measures to monitor driving while intoxicated on cannabis.

Decreased cognitive function

  1. Both can also leave you feeling a bit worse for wear the next day, though this is more likely to happen with alcohol.
  2. Yet in the 20th century, the tobacco industry designed highly addictive products and incited a worldwide epidemic in tobacco addiction and subsequent cancer, cardiovascular and lung disease.
  3. If the question is about weight, the African elephant is the biggest land animal.
  4. Alcohol is alcohol, whether you’re talking about beer, wine, or spirits.
  5. This means that they can help protect nerve cells from damage which can decrease your chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The use of marijuana, however, seemed to have no significant long-term effects on brain structure. Similar observational studies over decades have been critical to our current knowledge base regarding alcohol. We also need randomized, controlled trials to understand the potential benefits of different cannabinoid compounds. In terms of cannabis, I tell my patients that we still aren’t sure if there’s a safe level of use, but that in general, scientists consider frequent and higher-THC use to be riskier. From a medical standpoint, there is no level of alcohol use that is completely safe, as studies have shown harms even with light drinking.

what is worse alcohol or weed

Salomeh Keyhani is a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. Chronic drinkers display reductions in memory, attention, and planning, as well as impaired emotional processes and social cognition — and these can persist even after years of abstinence. 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. Heavy drug use is never ideal — and marijuana is no different in this regard.

Medication-assisted treatment (MAT)

One study linked the use of potent marijuana to psychotic disorders, but other studies suggest people with psychotic disorders may be predisposed to pot use. Research on whether smoked marijuana causes lung disease or cancer has yielded conflicting results, with studies that control for tobacco smoking finding no significant effect from marijuana on lung cancer risk. Alcohol, tobacco, and characteristics of high-functioning alcoholics prescription painkillers are likely deadlier than other drugs because they are legal, so comparing their aggregate effects to illegal drugs is difficult. Some drugs are very harmful to individuals, but they’re so rarely used that they may not be a major public health threat. A few drugs are enormously dangerous in the short-term but not the long-term (heroin), or vice versa (tobacco).

And a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health found that binge drinking among adults ages 35 to 50 has reached historic levels. Yet early indicators of alcohol issues show that if attention were paid, excessive drinking might be headed off before alcoholism develops. For example, experts now recognize a pre-addiction stage of alcohol use disorder (AUD).

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. One of the main negative issues of weed vs. alcohol is all of the issues with smoking marijuana. Edibles cut down on one of the major issues with cannabis because they don’t https://soberhome.net/addiction-and-recovery-buddhists-on-the-path-to/ require smoking and eliminate many of these risks. 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. 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.

Most recently, real-world human studies have been very positive in reporting decreases in drinking for diabetic patients treated with GLP-1s (think Ozempic and Wegovy). Animal studies also show that GLP-1 receptor agonists suppress the rewarding effects of alcohol and reduce alcohol consumption. Acamprosate (Campral), usually taken three times a day, is another medication for AUD.

There may also be a link between daily weed use and poorer verbal memory in adults who start smoking at a young age. On the other hand, no https://sober-home.org/alcohol-and-anxiety-causes-risks-and-treatment/ such relationship appears to exist for cannabis. Sian Ferguson is a freelance health and cannabis writer based in Cape Town, South Africa.

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