The immediate effects of weed can vary quite a bit from person to person. One way to develop a healthy relationship with cannabis is to use it intentionally. If you want to seek out medical marijuana for a specific condition consider finding a doctor with Green Health Docs. Getting a medical marijuana card can ensure that you have access to regulated medical marijuana simply and easily. That being said, alcohol still faces all of the same aforementioned tolls on your health and risks of addiction.

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“Researchers are working around the clock to try to identify the ingredients in marijuana that have potential,” to benefit human health, Baler said. “You’re cumulatively impairing your cognitive function. What’s going to be the ultimate result, nobody can say.” Because marijuana can impair coordination and balance, there is the risk of hurting oneself, particularly if someone drives or chooses to have unprotected sex while their inhibitions are lowered, Baler said. These are two areas where people using marijuana could hurt themselves for the short and long term.

Discover how reshaping beliefs can lessen your desire to drink.

It is estimated that around 22.2 million people in the United States have used marijuana in the past month, making it “the most commonly used illicit drug” in the country. All of this helps prove that marijuana isn’t totally harmless — and some of its risks are likely unknown. There’s also some divergence within the specific categories of harm. But alcohol’s crime risk is due to its tendency to make people more aggressive (and more prone to committing crime), while heroin’s crime risk is based on the massive criminal trafficking network behind it. On the surface, weed appears to be safer, but there’s simply not enough evidence to declare a winner. Both can also leave you feeling a bit worse for wear the next day, though this is more likely to happen with alcohol.

1. 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.
2. While alcohol is usually fully metabolized within four to eight hours, edibles don’t even start to peak until after four hours after you eat them, and effects can last for as long as 12 hours, says Newell Bissex.
3. 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.
4. “For example, cannabis can make you peaceful, increase your connection with other people and give you personal insights, while alcohol can make people loud and bellicose,” he says.
5. 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.

Marijuana appears to be significantly less addictive than alcohol.

“Our results emphasize the importance of comprehensive substance use screenings in diabetes care, with a specific focus on cannabis,” Han and his colleagues wrote. It grades CUD as “mild” (two or three criteria), “moderate” (four or five), or “severe” (six or more). In the 2022 survey, 30 percent of past-year marijuana users qualified for the CUD label, which is the number that Lehman highlights. But just 5 percent of past-year users qualified for the “severe” category, compared to about 8 percent with “moderate” CUD and 17 percent with “mild” CUD.

Unlike alcohol, Baler said, the effects of chronic marijuana use are not as well established. Animal studies have indicated some possible impact on reproduction. 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. Again, there isn’t significant data to point to specific deaths caused solely by weed.

Some compounds in cannabis have been found to be anticancer, antibiotic, and antifungal. 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. In general, marijuana is considered less harmful than alcohol but alcohol can be considered more socially acceptable. After all, you can only purchase cannabis products at dispensaries where in some states you can purchase alcohol in supermarkets. Additionally, alcohol is more socially acceptable in public use or work situations while using cannabis at a work function could be looked down upon. It can cause mood swings and we’re all familiar with people who are “angry drunks.” The impact of alcohol can vary based on how much you’re using and how your body interacts with it.

Critics of applying psychiatric diagnoses based on survey responses have noted that such data may result in overestimates because they do not measure clinical significance. He spends “excessive time” acquiring cannabis, using cannabis, or recovering from its effects. A closer look at the NSDUH numbers suggests a likelier explanation. If you want to mix the two, pay careful attention to how much of each you’re consuming, especially if you’ve never mixed them before.

This makes the task of building scientific drug policies very challenging. Alcohol’s effects on behavior can also lead to more crime, while marijuana use appears to have little-to-no effect. Alcohol is a factor in 40 percent of violent crimes, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. But various studies found marijuana doesn’t make users more aggressive or lead to crime. Alcohol and marijuana are both intoxicants, but one study from Columbia University researchers estimated that alcohol multiplies the chance of a fatal traffic accident by nearly 14 times, while marijuana nearly doubles the risk.

The analysis doesn’t fully account for a drug’s legality, accessibility, or how widely a drug is used. If heroin and crack were legal and more accessible, they would very likely rank higher than alcohol. The harm score for marijuana would also likely rise after legalization, but probably not too much since pot use is already widespread. 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.

“There are segments of the population that want to bypass the entire process, grabbing this nugget of truth … and claiming smoking marijuana can be good for your health and have medical uses,” Baler said. Drinking can lead to alcoholic liver disease, which can progress to fibrosis of the liver, which in turn can potentially https://sober-home.org/ lead to liver cancer, Murray said. “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.

That study has drawn widespread media attention, appearing in outlets like the Washington Post, the Guardian, the New Republic, and here at Vox. As with the short-term effects of alcohol and weed, the long-term effects differ from person to person. The short-term effects of weed and alcohol differ from person to person. Generally speaking, weed tends to come with fewer risks than alcohol, but there are a lot of factors to consider. Plus, they’re unique substances that produce different effects, which makes side-by-side comparisons difficult. Green Health Docs’ mission is to combat the nation’s opioid epidemic.

Alcohol has more far-reaching consequences because it is consumed by so many more people, but marijuana is worse when it comes to its direct impact on brain aging. The bottom line in terms of brain health and overall well-being https://sober-home.org/spice-is-more-than-a-deadly-drug-it-s-a-window-on/ is to eliminate or reduce the use of both these substances. A lot of research has also linked adolescent marijuana use with a range of negative consequences, including cognitive deficiencies and worse educational outcomes.

Alcohol and cannabis are vastly different but often get lumped together because they are intoxicants. The way they make you feel may make them seem similar but their impact on your body and any lasting damage are not remotely the same. Today, into the fourth year of my sobriety and working as a sober, curious guide, I am still sometimes struck by how stark the gap between our beliefs and reality can be when it comes to alcohol. However, the good news is that within that gap also lies the key to weakening our desire to drink.

The “mild” category, in other words, accounted for 55 percent of the marijuana users who were deemed to have experienced CUD in the previous year. New York’s pot predicament “seem[s] worse” because “marijuana is addictive,” Lehman argues. Too much alcohol affects your speech, muscle coordination and vital centers of your brain. A heavy drinking binge may even cause a life-threatening coma or death. This is of particular concern when you’re taking certain medications that also depress the brain’s function.

This almost points to the importance of regulation so people can use standardized dosages to track their usage of cannabis. Additionally, cannabis is not always the only drug or substance that someone might be using. This also skews any data because someone engaged in an accident or having a health issue may have more than cannabis in their system. It can be challenging to ascertain how many deaths are caused by cannabis. While there can be the odd allergic reaction or bad interaction or even a child may inadvertently consume cannabis, there isn’t sufficient data to point towards any deaths caused by cannabis. This post will explore all the differences between these two intoxicants and explore their impact on your health and society at large.

As a result of this changing legislation, researchers have been trying to find out more about how marijuana may benefit health, as well as the damage that it could cause. Additionally, researchers looking to study long-term marijuana use have had difficulty in finding people who regularly smoke marijuana but don’t also smoke tobacco cigarettes. And the illegality of marijuana has also limited research in this field. 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. “Excess alcohol is going to lead to very severe consequences, and chronic excess alcohol is the most likely to lead to a lot of threatening issues,” Murray said.

Due to the production of edibles and how they’re presented, it can be difficult to understand dosage. Similar to alcohol, it’s possible to consume too much too quickly. Some people who use edibles experience a delayed reaction to the products. This can lead to consuming more edibles to make up for the delay, resulting in getting higher than they bargained for.