However, alcohol was considered more addictive according to those surveyed. In fact, respondents rated alcohol between “somewhat” and “moderately addictive” compared to “not very” or “somewhat addictive” for marijuana. While the perception of alcohol dependency was higher among people who didn’t drink alcohol, even people who consumed both alcohol and marijuana believed the addictiveness of alcohol was greater than that of marijuana. On the other hand, self-harm and suicide are much more common among people who binge drink or drink frequently. But scientists have had a hard time deciphering whether excessive alcohol use causes depression and anxiety or whether people with depression and anxiety drink in an attempt to relieve those symptoms.

Marijuana isn’t perfectly safe

Those questions, and more, you can listen to these experts answer above in the Facebook Live video. Both weed and alcohol temporarily impair memory, and alcohol can cause blackouts by rendering the brain incapable of forming memories. The most severe long-term effects are seen in heavy, chronic, or binge users who begin using in their teens. On the other hand, low to moderate drinking — about one drink a day — has been linked with a lower risk of heart attack and stroke compared with abstention. James Nicholls, a director at Alcohol Research UK, told The Guardian that those findings should be taken with a grain of salt since “any protective effects tend to be canceled out by even occasional bouts of heavier drinking.”

Health Challenges

1. Some relate to muscle control, such as muscle spasms, tremors, coordination problems, overactive reflexes, and loss of bladder control.
2. And one study found marijuana users have a 4.8-fold increase in risk of a heart attack during the first hour after smoking because of the drug’s effect on your heart rate.
3. While men and women were more concerned with alcohol consumption in relation to addiction, appearance, or health, the most pressing concern was public behavior, which they were only somewhat concerned about.

Adding alcohol to a high dose of THC impaired driving simulator scores by 17 percent. In each session, participants consumed a different combination of placebo, low, and moderate doses of THC and alcohol. A number of recent studies also focus on how combining weed and alcohol affects your driving.

That reduced functioning was also linked with aggressive behavior. 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. Medical cannabis is available in more delivery methods than ever before, such as gummy bears, dried flowers, pills, lotions, drops and a variety of edibles, but what exactly does it do? With so much misinformation and junk-science on the internet, it is important to get solid facts from doctors and scientists you can trust before deciding if medical marijuana could help you. Now leading experts at Harvard Medical School are here to help you separate fact from frightening fiction about medical cannabis so you can make informed decisions.

ADVERSE BRAIN HEALTH EFFECTS OF MARIJUANA USE

“Questioning one’s relationship with alcohol is a very healthy trend,” said Carol Boyd, founding director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In all seriousness, marijuana affects your reflexes, hindering your motor skills. Every hour, one person is killed and 20 are injured in crashes involving a drunken driver, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

Even if ingesting marijuana isn’t deadly, it still can be dangerous. The short-term effects of THC, one of steve harwell alcoholism the chemical compounds of marijuana, can lead to altered moods, impaired body movement, and hallucinations. Even more concerning, the long-term effects of marijuana use can include memory loss and cognitive decline.

Research highlighted by the National Cancer Institute suggests that the more alcohol you drink — particularly the more you drink regularly — the higher your risk of developing cancer. For a 1994 survey, epidemiologists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse asked more than 8,000 people from ages 15 to 64 about their drug use. Of those who had tried marijuana at least once, roughly 9% eventually fit a diagnosis of addiction. To put that in perspective, the addiction rate for cocaine was 17%, while heroin was 23% and nicotine was 32%. “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.”

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. 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. 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.