Alcohol vs THC

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

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In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small 😎

❝Can you do the pros and cons of thc vs alcohol?❞

We can!

First let’s note: this is certainly a case of “the lesser evil”, as both come with health risks.

As for the benefits, for both the main reason people take them is for relaxation—or to frame it the other way around: for relief from stress, anxiety, or other psychological woes. In more overt cases of self-medication, it can be in pursuit of alleviating physical pain.

Taking the “pros” in isolation, it’s reasonable to say that THC is, for most people, the winner. Enjoying the positive effects requires much smaller doses than alcohol, as it’s much more potent, mg for mg.

It’s also worth noting that for some people (such as those in great pain), it may well be that the benefits subjectively outweigh the risks, and in a subset of those people (such as those with terminal illness and a life expectancy being measured in weeks or days), the benefits may outweigh any risks.

Writer’s anecdote: once upon a very long time ago, my grandfather was dying—in hospital, and the prognosis was “it’s going to be today or maybe tomorrow”. He (a lifelong lover of Scotch whisky) wanted a Scotch; the hospital staff forbade it. There is a kind of logic there—if it made him sick, they could be blamed for making his last hours miserable and I’m sure they imagined headlines of being blamed for making a dying man sick with strong alcohol. Nevertheless, some Scotch was smuggled in for him by a member of his family. Was he fine? Well, no, he died. But that was already expected, and respecting his choice was deemed more important by the family. Was it the right choice? Who’s to say? But it was certainly an understandable, and contextually rational one, in a “what’s the worst that can happen” setting.

All this to say, for some people the pros may subjectively outweigh any potential cons.

See also: Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief: When Painkillers Aren’t Helping, These Things Might

The other “pros” of THC are more a matter of “it’s less bad than alcohol”, so let’s look at the cons:

The lesser evil?

There is a wealth of scientific evidence that alcohol is very bad for pretty much everything. Yes, even for heart health, yes, even the famous “small glass of red”: Can We Drink To Good Health?

For how that myth got started, see French biochemist Jessie Inchauspé’s explanation: Are You Making This Alcohol Mistake?

Alcohol also increases all-cause mortality at any dose (even “low-risk drinking”): Alcohol Consumption Patterns and Mortality Among Older Adults

…and the World Health Organization has declared that the only safe amount of alcohol is zero: WHO: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

But what of alcohol and cancer? According to the American Association of Cancer Research’s latest report, more than half of Americans do not know that alcohol increases the risk of cancer, which you can read more about here: How Much Alcohol Does It Take To Increase Cancer Risk?

Meanwhile, there is a paucity of high-quality evidence for THC (good or bad). That’s not to say that the science hasn’t been done at all, but it is to say that while decades of “the war on drugs” might have done nothing to curtail drug use, the illegality of such in many places (especially the US) really slowed down scientific research to a crawl. So, we have to make do with much weaker evidence, and a lot of unanswered questions.

One thing we can say is that the risk of developing a substance use disorder is much lower for THC than for alcohol:

See: Prevalence of Marijuana Use Disorders in the United States Between 2001–2002 and 2012–2013

If you prefer just the stats without the science, here’s the CDC’s rendering of that: Addiction (Marijuana or Cannabis Use Disorder)

So, that’s a point in THC’s favor.

What about heart health? Both substances are popularly considered relaxing, and as such, by “common sense”, good for the heart. We’ve shown above how the opposite is true in the case of alcohol, so how does THC stack up?

We discussed, a little while back, new research that showed that cannabis users have a higher risk of heart attacks, even among younger and otherwise healthy individuals. This is based on analyzing data from 4,636,628 relatively healthy adults.

Specifically, the data showed that even young healthy cannabis users get:

• Sixfold increased risk of heart attack
• Fourfold increased risk of ischemic stroke
• Threefold increased risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack, or stroke

There’s nuance to this (and none of it is favor of cannabis), and you can read about that here: Cannabis & Heart Attacks

Nevertheless, those numbers are worse than the numbers for alcohol, so that’s a point in alcohol’s favor.

How about brain health? Well, neither are fabulous in the long-run, but putting them head-to-head in this category is essentially a matter of “it destroys neurons” (alcohol) vs “cannabis use disorder can cause problems especially if for example someone is already prone to psychosis, but occasional use is not* significantly associated with such problems” (THC).

*On a big data level, anyway. Of course anything can happen for an individual, and science rarely speaks in absolutes in this regard.

Learn more about each of these: How Does Alcohol Cause Blackouts? vs Cannabis & Mental Health: Good Or Bad?

So that’s another point in THC’s favor.

How do they compare for sleep disruption? Since both are used by many people to help get to sleep, but both disrupt the quality of that sleep once there, this can be an important consideration.

The short version is: alcohol is bad for all aspects of sleep, while THC increases delta-wave deep sleep (restorative rest), but does this at the cost of REM sleep: Sweet Dreams Are Made of THC (Or Are They?)

So, given that’s “all bad” for alcohol and “mixed bag” for THC, we’re going to say THC wins on this one.

Yes, there’s a lesser evil:

On balance, this means that for most people, THC has somewhat more potent benefits, and relatively fewer/lesser risks, than alcohol.

If you’d like to quit alcohol, check out: How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol

If you’d like a reassuring timeline of how long it takes for various body parts/systems to recover from alcohol, see: What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Alcohol

Finally, before you take up the use of THC, if you haven’t already, you might want to swing by: Cannabis Myths vs Reality

…for some important considerations not covered above as they didn’t change the head-to-head comparison.

Take care!