Alcohol can cause cognitive impairment which can lead to poor judgment, decreased coordination, and memory loss and in some cases blackouts. Additionally, compounds in cannabis can help prevent some diseases, stunt oxidative damage, and can also help prevent major conditions. Some compounds in cannabis addiction as a brain disease revised have been found to be anticancer, antibiotic, and antifungal. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that lemon, pine nuts, and peppercorns can help with symptoms of greening out. These foods contain limonene, pinene, and caryophyllene, which are terpenes that can help reduce the intensity of a high.
What Happens if You Combine Marijuana and Alcohol?
Moderate alcohol consumption may have cardiovascular benefits but excessive drinking can put you at an increased risk of high blood pressure, cardiomyopathy, and arrhythmias. Again, 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.
Mixing weed and alcohol: the good, the bad and the ugly
People can have different reactions to consuming the same amount of cannabis or alcohol. It is important to understand your personal tolerance for both substances in order to avoid adverse effects such as greening out, spins, or drunkenness. Others may drink alcohol before smoking marijuana to purposefully intensify the effects of weed.
Cross-Faded: When You Are Drunk and High at the Same Time
The concept of being “cross-faded” was studied by Patrick & Lee with a young adult survey conducted in Seattle, Washington. Being cross-faded can create a unique but unpredictable high that is different from the effect of consuming each substance separately. Starting low and going slow is important in avoiding any adverse effects of mixing weed and alcohol. This means starting with small amounts of both substances and gradually increasing the dosage as needed.
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. However, this is low compared to 40% of all car crashes that directly involve alcohol. 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. Additionally, while you can have a cannabis overdose it’s not remotely fatal while an overdose of alcohol can cause lasting damage and even death. Weed is not without its pitfalls but alcohol is by far more problematic.
Potential for misuse
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. When it comes to beer, wine, and hard liquor, each can produce different results when mixed with cannabis. Effectively, researchers think that marijuana can cause changes to the way alcohol impacts you. There is a need for more rigorous and longitudinal research studies on the co-use of cannabis and alcohol to glean a more complete understanding of the relationship between the two substances.
Conversely, wine can produce more potent effects than beer when consumed with cannabis, due to its higher alcohol content. For context, many people consider beer and wine to be relatively equivalent drinks. If a couple is out on a dinner date, for example, one person orders a beer and the other a glass of wine, no one will bat an eye. So a single glass of wine 50 sobriety gifts ideas effective substance abuse treatment alongside a joint will produce stronger effects than a can of beer. This can increase the risk of adverse outcomes, such as impaired judgment, slowed reaction times, and decreased motor control. Preclinical and experimental research can be utilized to better understand the complex relationship between the co-use of cannabis and alcohol and related consequences.
- However, individuals who green out after consuming alcohol and weed may want to seek medical attention, especially if they have respiratory or cardiovascular conditions.
- While being intoxicated with weed feels different than being intoxicated with alcohol, the two have roughly the same effect on your cognitive abilities, reflexes, and judgment.
- Some people may consider both substances similar because of how they make you feel.
- While used less often than urine testing, saliva screenings are common, and the results are considered highly accurate.
Overall, these findings from preclinical research support the existence of potential cross-tolerance between cannabis and alcohol and have important translational implications for clinical research. Using alcohol or marijuana may lead to side effects and risks for the user. Mixing alcohol and marijuana together can intensify certain effects of both, leading to increased health risk and dangers over using either alone.
Those who consumed just alcohol had worse cognitive functioning than those who only consumed THC. Those who combined the two had reduced cognitive performance than those who only consumed alcohol. Urine tests are usually able to detect substances that were used further back, but there are more challenges to testing including the risk of urine samples being manipulated. This can include people adding substances to the urine sample or submitting other people’s urine for testing.
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. 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. 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.
When https://sober-house.org/marijuana-cannabis-weed-what-it-is-side-effects/ are mixed together, the effects of each individual substance become exaggerated. This can result in a person losing control of their actions and even overdosing. While smoking weed and then drinking alcohol may slow down alcohol’s effects, drinking alcohol and then smoking weed can cause the opposite reaction—alcohol can intensify weed’s effect and lead to a stronger high. Particularly among those who don’t use marijuana on a regular basis, drinking and then smoking weed can cause intense symptoms such as nausea, sweating and dizziness.