Alcohol or Marijuana: Which is Worse for Your Brain?

There probably isn’t a perfect way to evaluate and present all drug harms. Researchers will always need to balance making information simple and accessible for policymakers and the public with the inherent complexity of drugs and their effects. This makes the task of building scientific drug policies very challenging.

On the surface, weed appears to be safer, but there’s simply not enough evidence to declare a winner. Cannabis addiction is surprisingly common, however, according to 2015 study. The immediate effects of weed can vary quite a bit from person to person. For example, one person may have a very low tolerance for weed but be able to tolerate alcohol well.

1. The short-term effects of weed and alcohol differ from person to person.
2. To put that in perspective, the addiction rate for cocaine was 17%, while heroin was 23% and nicotine was 32%.
3. It has been linked to a higher risk for dementia, especially early-onset dementia in a study of 262,000 adults, as well as to smaller brain size.
4. The site connects with consumers to provide them with personalized content that reduces their stress, makes them laugh, and ultimately feel more confident and capable on their healthcare journey.

Cannabis has been found to potentially increase your chances of developing anxiety, paranoia, and psychotic symptoms.There is ongoing research on the relationship between marijuana use and mental health disorders. 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. Again, 12 illegal street drugs there isn’t significant data to point to specific deaths caused solely by weed. Again, a cannabis overdose can cause increased nausea and vomiting but is not fatal. Even heavy marijuana abuse can at worst cause schizophrenia in people with a history of mental illness. At first glance, it might seem that alcohol does the most damage to our brain health and general well-being because it is more widely used.

Marijuana use had no impact

It has been linked to a higher risk for dementia, especially early-onset dementia in a study of 262,000 adults, as well as to smaller brain size. “It’s important to make your doctor aware of any substance you’re taking, whether its an over the counter [medication] or herbal medicine,” Colvin said. “It can increase or decrease effectiveness or levels of medicine that you’re taking. Some compounds that are found in marijuana are using the same pathways to be metabolized as other common heart medications.” This includes blood thinners, anti-cholesterol medications and some blood pressure medicines.

What to Consider When Using Alcoholic Beverages or Marijuana

In addition to memory loss and cognitive impairment, research on whether these effects are lasting is still equivocal. If given the choice, over two-thirds of marijuana users would vote to make it legal. Sixty-two percent of non-pot smokers would prefer that alcohol be made legal instead. Drinking alcohol, like a weed, has severe short-and long-term consequences. In November 2017, a group of the nation’s top cancer doctors issued a statement asking people to drink less.

Is There a “Safe” Amount of Alcohol for the Brain?

A 16-year study of more than 65,000 Americans, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that healthy marijuana users were not more likely to die earlier than healthy people who did not use cannabis. 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. 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.

Less than 50% of Americans have even tried marijuana, and a much smaller percentage are using it on a regular basis. So the sheer numbers of people showing up in the ER after smoking pot are going to be a lot less than for alcohol. However, having worked in ERs since pot was legalized, I can tell you that people who smoke weed are showing up a lot more now than in the past, and those numbers are climbing.

Considering the statistics you just read about marijuana-based crashes, 40 percent of car crash deaths in the US involve alcohol, and 30 percent of deaths involve alcohol above the legal limit for driving. “There’s always choices,” Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert at Stanford University, explained. Nutt acknowledges these problems, but argues that his analysis provides value to policymakers. “I believe we have provided the best currently available analysis of an extremely complex multifaceted data set.” 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.

Yet as I stood in the drink aisle, with its shelves of mood elixirs and wellness tonics, these products strangely made me feel worse. Passing on these drinks can seem like a missed opportunity; after all, who doesn’t need some kind of boost these days? Perhaps the appeal of these beverages is less about their actual effect and more about the feeling they sell—that you can take a step toward self-optimization one sip at a time.

So, the answer to that question may depend on which strain of cannabis you’re smoking or what mix of cannabinoids are in it. The researchers looked at brain scans from about 850 substance-using adults ages 18 to 55 and about substance-using 440 teens ages 14 to 19, all of whom reported varying levels of alcohol and cannabis use. With marijuana legalization on the rise, an increasing number of studies are exploring the drug’s potential harms and benefits. However, a new study suggests that when it comes to brain health, alcohol is more damaging.

But as you continue to drink, you become drowsy and have less control over your actions. If you’re worried that you might have alcohol use disorder, don’t try to quit cold turkey on your own. As anyone who’s consumed alcohol xanax side effects knows, ethanol can directly influence brain function. Ethanol is classified as a “depressant” because it has a generally slowing effect on brain activity through activation of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) pathways.

This means that for people taking drugs or medications while drinking, the alcohol can increase or decrease levels of the active drug in the body. However, dosing with edibles can be imperfect and take time to ascertain so when using edibles it’s best to pace yourself and examine how you feel. However, ultimately cannabis edibles can take less of a toll on your health and provide you with a high or relaxation without causing too much damage to your body or health. There’s a delay in when you feel edibles because it can take time for the THC to be absorbed into your bloodstream.