Cannabis vs Alcohol, the Healthier Choice by Jon Hazell

You’ve heard it before, consuming/smoking marijuana (cannabis) is safer than drinking alcohol. Most of the time it revolves around things like not falling down, getting into fights, killing brains cells, etc., but now we have the science to back up how/why it’s safer.

A study published in 2015 measured the risk of mortality of various different drugs and found alcohol to be the deadliest, followed by nicotine, while marijuana was found to be the least risky.

How much less risky is cannabis? The study found it to be 114 times less risky than alcohol!

What made this study different from previous studies with similar findings is that to combat the criticisms being made that judgements were skewed due to the subjective beliefs of the researchers the study employed a new risk assessment technique called the “Margin of Exposure” (MOE) method that looks at the ratio between the dose which characterizes adverse effects and the amount that people typically use. The drugs they looked at were heroin, cannabis, nicotine, alcohol, methadone, amphetamine and MDMA.

Another study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that driving under the influence of marijuana was far less risky than under the influence of alcohol. The study actually found that there was no statistically significant change in the risk associated with using marijuana prior to driving. That being said we still don’t recommend driving under the influence of marijuana, better safe than sorry.

Business Insider did research into which one was worse for you, examining several different factors, and while there were some negative effects, *spoiler*, the clear winner was cannabis. Backing up that earlier mention about not getting into fights they found that marijuana users were significantly less likely to commit violence against a partner than those who don't use it, while numerous studies have linked alcohol use to violent behavior, especially incidents of violence at home.

Kermit might be right in that “it ain’t easy being green”, but it is better.

To end we leave you with this fun music video by the Streets addressing the matter: