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. Since 2012 when voters in Colorado and Washington legalized recreational marijuana, and subsequently seven other states followed, science has been trying to catch up to the law. Years of studies on excessive alcohol use demonstrates its negative effects on brain and general health. Moderate alcohol consumption may how old is demi lovato have cardiovascular benefits but excessive drinking can put you at an increased risk of high blood pressure, cardiomyopathy, and arrhythmias.
The study is only saying that decreasing the integrity or volume of white and gray matter may not be one of the ways that marijuana affects one’s health,” Maxwell said. Although drug policy experts generally don’t dispute the assertion that alcohol is more dangerous than pot, what is whipit the study, led by British researcher David Nutt, is quite controversial. Experts see the rankings as deeply flawed, largely because they present the harms that come from drugs in a rather crude, one-dimensional manner. Sian Ferguson is a freelance health and cannabis writer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
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Weed can also trigger temporary feelings of paranoia and hostility, but it’s not yet clear whether those symptoms are linked with an increased risk of long-term psychosis. On the other hand, no such relationship appears to exist for cannabis. 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. 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. When you use it safely, marijuana has many medicinal benefits.9 It’s especially helpful for people with chronic pain.
And looking at deaths or other harms caused by certain drugs doesn’t always account for substances, such as prescription medications, that are often mixed with others, making them more deadly or harmful than they would be alone. Between alcohol and cannabis, many people see marijuana as the lesser evil. You might not even know that weed is addictive.7 As legalization becomes more widespread in the U.S., so do studies shedding light on cannabis use, weed’s potential risks and benefits,8 and addiction. 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. While there is the possibility for occasional deaths and accidents caused by cannabis use there isn’t sufficient data to compare it to alcohol.
It can also lower your inhibitions making you more likely to make riskier or rash decisions that can lead to an accident. Cannabis can affect your ability to pay attention, memory, and decision-making. It can overall slow your reaction time and your general perception of time and distance which can increase your likelihood of getting into an accident. Keep in mind that there are dozens of factors to account for, including how the substances affect your heart, brain, and behavior, and how likely you are to get hooked. In contrast, “we don’t see any statistically significant effects of cannabis on gray matter or white matter,” Hutchison said. The research shouldn’t be taken as the be-all and end-all in the great debate over whether cannabis is bad for the brain.
There’s plenty of research about alcohol’s long-term effect on your brain and overall health. The amount of research regarding marijuana’s long-term effect on brain health, however, is not so ample. There probably isn’t a perfect way to evaluate and present all drug harms.
But while early studies showed some evidence linking marijuana to lung cancer, subsequent studies have debunked that association. Drinking can lead to alcoholic liver disease, which can progress to fibrosis of the liver, which in turn can potentially lead to liver cancer, Murray said. Marijuana affects the cardiovascular system, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, but a person can’t fatally overdose on pot like they can with alcohol, Baler said. But despite eating over 600 extra calories when smoking, marijuana users generally don’t have higher body-mass indexes. In fact, studies suggest that regular smokers have a slightly reduced risk of obesity.
How addictive is alcohol compared to marijuana?
Maxwell thinks we need to learn more about how marijuana affects people not just physiologically but also mentally and spiritually. He also points out that since the legalization of marijuana, there has been increased hospitalizations in psychiatric and inpatient hospital settings. Hutchison’s study, he said, was different than other studies in the fact that he looked at gray and white matter across all regions of the brain, and also compared the two vices. With marijuana, the studies on its effects on brain health are limited and, also, the findings are across the board. Hutchison said that this variety of outcomes with previous studies led him and his team to investigate marijuana’s impacts what happens if i report a drug dealer on brain health and function. A lot of research has also linked adolescent marijuana use with a range of negative consequences, including cognitive deficiencies and worse educational outcomes.
- Although for palliative care, he said, “that would be a different realm of medicine,” in which the goal is to drug a person so they do not feel pain.
- But heroin scores much higher for mortality risk, while crack poses a much bigger risk for mental impairment.
- After all, you can only purchase cannabis products at dispensaries where in some states you can purchase alcohol in supermarkets.
- The short-term effects of weed and alcohol 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’s important to note that when cannabis gets legalized many people may use cannabis semi-legally by consuming illegally purchased cannabis which can lead to them consuming more than standard dosages.
Another problem is determining whether the drug actually causes the brain changes that are observed. Unlike alcohol, which slows your heart rate, marijuana speeds it up, which could negatively affect the heart in the short term. Still, the largest-ever report on cannabis from the National Academies of Sciences, released in January, found insufficient evidence to support or refute the idea that cannabis may increase the overall risk of a heart attack. When it comes to addiction profiles and risk of death or overdose combined with ties to cancer, car crashes, violence, and obesity, the research suggests that marijuana may be less of a health risk than alcohol. In November, a group of the nation’s top cancer doctors issued a statement asking people to drink less. They cited strong evidence that drinking alcohol — as little as a glass of wine or beer a day — increases the risk of developing both pre- and postmenopausal breast cancer.
How we should evaluate drugs and the harm they do
Some see cannabis as a safer alternative to prescription opioids and other narcotics. Natural chemicals like THC and CBD, which appear in most strains of marijuana, also have several other effects. A luxury center with a maximum of 8 clients at a time treating addiction, dual diagnoses, and primary mental health concerns using adventure therapy, evidence-based modalities, and unique programs for long-lasting healing. Providing multiple levels of individualized addiction and mental health treatment, with evidence-based, holistic, cultural, and adventure therapies. Alcohol addiction is more common2 than other drug addictions in the U.S. There’s no fixed timeline for how quickly or easily this condition develops.
Weed Vs. Alcohol Feeling
She’s passionate about empowering readers to take care of their mental and physical health through science-based, empathetically delivered information. It’s possible to develop an emotional and/or physical dependence on both substances. 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. 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.
Weed Addiction Vs Alcohol Addiction
The finding aligns with some previous research on alcohol’s connections with violence. Having a blood-alcohol level of at least 0.05%, on the other hand, increased that risk by 575%. “I think the headlines regarding this study may lead people to think that marijuana use does not pose a risk.
For one thing, the study looked only at marijuana use in the past 30 days, and the participants had fairly low levels of pot consumption. In addition, Hutchison told Live Science, there could be subtle brain changes that the study’s measurements could not capture. Although for palliative care, he said, “that would be a different realm of medicine,” in which the goal is to drug a person so they do not feel pain. Alcohol is more likely than marijuana to interact with other drugs.
Further research is needed to better understand the relationship between marijuana use and addiction. Binge and heavy drinking also play a significant role in developing alcohol use disorder. For many people, it’s perfectly safe to have a drink or 2 with friends on occasion. But if you’re getting drunk every day, or blacking out every time you go to the bar, you may be more vulnerable to addiction.
The health effects of marijuana use, however, are generally less risky than those of alcohol. Many studies suggest cannabis has a lower risk for health-related harms12 like cancer, death from severe withdrawal, and liver damage. And one study found that marijuana has a much lower risk of overdose than alcohol. Alcohol, tobacco, and 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).
