Combining them can lead to difficulties in concentration, learning, and retaining information. It’s important to note that these effects can be particularly pronounced in adolescents and young adults whose brains are still developing. According to studies, the combination of alcohol and marijuana significantly increases the risk of motor vehicle accidents. The impairment caused by these substances can lead to poor decision-making and delayed reactions, compromising both the safety of the individual using them and those around them. The combination of alcohol and weed can make existing mental health issues like anxiety, depression, or psychosis worse. The combination can heighten negative feelings and even trigger paranoia, increasing distress and the risk of harm to oneself or others.
What are some of the negative side effects of mixing alcohol and weed?
In each session, participants consumed a different combination of placebo, low, and moderate doses of THC and alcohol. A 2017 review of existing studies notes that people who use alcohol and weed together tend to consume more of both. This can increase your risk for developing a dependence on alcohol, weed, or both. This means you might be tipsier than you feel, increasing your risk for becoming overly intoxicated. Weed appeared to slow down the rise of blood alcohol levels after consuming a high dose of alcohol.
Cannabis Consultation
The effects of combining alcohol and cannabis can lead to a higher risk of accidents and injuries, as well as increase the likelihood of adverse outcomes, such as vomiting, panic attacks, and paranoia. In other words, it makes it a lot easier to start “greening out” (feeling light-headed or nauseous after getting too intoxicated too quickly. Hard liquor, with its concentrated alcohol content, can have particularly potent effects when combined with cannabis. This combo can lead to the most severe impairment and the highest risk of accidents and injuries. Therefore, you should be especially cautious about combining liquor and weed. As the cannabis industry continues to grow, there has been a rise in the popularity of infused beverages, which offer a unique and potentially safer way to consume both weed and alcohol (or CBD and alcohol).
How Do Alcohol and Cannabis Interact?
From sparkling cannabis-infused waters to cannabis-infused beers, these products provide an alternative to traditional means of getting drunk or high that may be more familiar to those looking to try both substances together. Despite its popularity and social ubiquity, drinking alcohol comes at a cost. And it’s not just financial costs either; alcohol-related impaired driving leads to more than 10,000 deaths yearly, or one person every 39 minutes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The reason behind this is that alcohol increases the absorption of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the main psychoactive component in cannabis. People who smoke weed after drinking alcohol often experience a stronger high.
It’s crucial to educate yourself about the risks and effects of different substances to make responsible decisions about drug use. Understanding the potential dangers, such as addiction, overdose, and long-term health effects, can empower you to make safer choices and prevent unnecessary harm. While alcohol and weed affect cognitive abilities differently, combining them can significantly impair decision-making.
- Alcohol and marijuana/cannabis are frequently used simultaneously (i.e., SAM use).
- No combination was significantly different from using liquor + 2 cannabis products on a given day for negative consequences after adjusting for covariates (see Figure 4A).
- In particular, SAM users were shown to be more likely to endorse nine types of consequences, relative to alcohol-only users, with the strongest effects observed for more acute consequences (e.g., blackouts; Jackson et al., 2020).
- Luckily, this is easy to avoid by just knowing your limits and not overdoing it.
- Other research suggests that, if weed slows your body’s rate of alcohol absorption, then it may delay the feeling of being drunk.
- This is because both alcohol and THC, the active psychoactive compound in cannabis, are two different kinds of substances.
Impaired Cognitive Function
Using similar methodology, a second study suggested that plasma THC levels were significantly increased when subjects first consumed alcohol 72. Compared to placebo, the combination of a low cannabis dose (2.53% THC) and low alcohol dose (0.35 g/kg) increased the number and duration of positive subjective effects, and resulted in higher plasma levels of THC. In contrast, the low cannabis dose combined with a high alcohol dose (0.7 g/kg) dampened the rise in plasma alcohol levels and ultimately decreased the number and duration of positive subjective effects despite the high peak in THC plasma levels.
This can make it hard to assess risks, leading to impulsive actions and long-lasting consequences. Combining alcohol and weed can harm your body, causing higher heart rate, blood pressure, and dehydration. Continued crossfading may lead to serious long-term issues like liver damage, breathing problems, combining alcohol and marijuana produces or cognitive decline, particularly with habitual substance use. Not surprisingly, most single-product combinations resulted in reduced rates of consumption relative to using multiple products on a given day.
