The Effects of Combined Marijuana and Alcohol Consumption

While we see countries around the world starting to legalise marijuana, it is important to remember that alcohol is already legal, and inevitably a combined consumption could occur. Legalisation aside, this is useful information for anyone who does, or is thinking about taking marijuana.

A study published by Science Daily reports that significantly higher measures of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol—the main mind-altering ingredient in cannabis) were found among those who drank alcohol just before smoking marijuana. In fact, smoking the same marijuana but adding alcohol into the mix increased the THC levels by 62%, per blood tests. A shockingly high increase!

There are further studies on how alcohol and marijuana affect drivers. While an intoxicated person or someone who is high might sometimes be able to compensate to some degree for impairments during driving, when the drugs are combined, this ability to compensate is wiped out completely. That explains why the odds of having an accident after a driver drinks alcohol, compared to a sober driver, is estimated at 7.4 times higher, but after using marijuana and alcohol together, a driver’s risk is 8.4 times higher.

A further dangerous option with marijuana is edible cannabis. The extra danger is the delayed effect, edible cannabis products can take two hours to reach peak effect. This means, that a person could keep drinking thinking that ‘everything is fine’, whilst the TCA levels go out the roof!

It is naïve to think that the combination does not happen often. The percentage of those who drink in the UK is very high, and unfortunately, the number of drug users who are teetotal is fairly low! Therefore, it is inevitable that alcohol and marijuana can end up combined with disastrous results.

For more information on how Narconon could potentially help you or a loved one off alcohol and or marijuana, contact us