Mixing Alcohol and Weed: Why and How Alcohol and THC Interact

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Why Do Alcohol and Cannabis Interact?

Cannabis is the term for all products that come from the plant Cannabis sativa. This plant contains more than 500 different chemical substances.

In cannabis, the chemicals that produce the drug-like effects are called cannabinoids. There are more than 100 different cannabinoids present in the plant. You might be familiar with the main ones: tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD).

Understanding this composition is key to knowing how cannabis and alcohol interact. Your brain has its own cannabinoid system, and its role is to regulate brain chemistry. THC excites this system by attaching itself to the cannabinoid receptors within it.

Research has found that alcohol also interacts with the cannabinoid system in your brain. Furthermore, if you are physically dependent on alcohol, alcohol may even change the makeup of this system.

Because alcohol and weed are both depressants that act on the brain’s cannabinoid system, so taking them at the same time can have a dramatic effect on your brain chemistry.

Health Risks of Combining These Substances

Drinking alcohol and using weed at the same time can be detrimental to your health. Let’s take a look at a few reasons why this is the case:

You may drink more alcohol: This can lead to dangerous blood alcohol levels because your body doesn’t give you warnings of how much alcohol you have actually had.
You may use more weed: Contrary to popularized myths, you can ingest enough THC to cause acute health emergencies, including loss of consciousness, derealization or complete detachment from your surroundings, which is sometimes called “greening out.” You may also experience panic attacks requiring medical care, cardiac events, and vomiting that cannot be stopped using medication.
You may engage in reckless behavior: You may feel as though you are sober enough to drive, swim, or participate in other activities that are not safe while intoxicated.

Short-Term Effects

When combining alcohol and weed, you may experience the following effects soon afterward:

Heavy vomiting, which may not be able to be controlled medically and may continue for an undetermined amount of time
Strong paranoia, or undue suspiciousness of others and profound feelings of dread that do not match reality
Decreased motor control and coordination
Decreased mental concentration

In addition, weed suppresses the gag reflex. This means you may not be able to throw up alcohol when your body needs to. This can raise your blood alcohol to dangerous levels, leading to alcohol poisoning.

Long-Term Effects

People who use alcohol and weed simultaneously are more likely to:

Engage in more drunk driving
Experience more negative consequences in their relationships with others
Drink more heavily
Drink more frequently
Have self-injurious behaviors

Factors That Increase Your Risk of Polysubstance Abuse

Certain conditions make individuals more likely to consume more than one drug at a time, such as alcohol and cannabis. Let’s review the most common ones.

Tolerance

Developing a tolerance to a substance means that your body has gotten used to the presence of it. As a result, you do not feel intoxicated even though you are, because your body can still perform major functions. Over time, you may start taking more of the substance just to feel the desired effect.

Just like with alcohol, it is possible to develop a tolerance to cannabis.

Tolerance is a well-documented contributing factor to developing an addiction because it encourages continued use of the substance in increasingly higher amounts over time.

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Method of Use

Smoking and vaping cannabis cause your body to absorb THC more quickly compared to using edibles. In other words, if you eat a brownie that has weed after drinking, the weed will be absorbed more slowly than if you smoked or vaped it. As a result, the overall alcohol-weed interaction in your system could be reduced.

However, the use of edibles with alcohol could be unpredictable, as many people do not feel the effects of the THC for a long period. This may lead to eating more of the edibles or drinking more alcohol. This could increase the severity of the alcohol interaction or mean that the interaction occurs when you don’t expect it to.

Concentration of Either Substance

The potency of either substance can also impact the level of alcohol and weed concentration in your blood. For instance, a beer has lower alcohol per volume, and people tend to drink it more slowly than a shot. Your body, therefore, absorbs it more slowly, leading to lower blood alcohol levels.

This is similar to the effects of weed. The lower the concentration of THC in the kind of cannabis you consume, the lower the total concentration of it will be in your body.

What Does This Mean for Me?

The exact risks of mixing marijuana and alcohol, or other cannabinoids and alcohol, are not well studied. However, you can protect yourself and those around you if you choose to use either of these substances recreationally or have a prescription for medical marijuana.

Use Risk Prevention Strategies

It is safest to avoid mixing alcohol and weed. This is the case even if you use medical marijuana, since THC and alcohol have been found to interact. It is not currently known if there is any completely safe level of alcohol and THC in the brain’s cannabinoid system.

Mixing alcohol and weed can be risky.

However, if you choose to mix them, reduce your risk of serious side effects from mixing weed and alcohol by:

Waiting an hour or more to use weed after drinking alcohol
Using low-concentration forms of cannabis
Using cannabis strains you are familiar with and know the effects of on your body
Drinking moderately by limiting yourself to one standard drink per hour
Avoiding shots and drinking games
Following the instructions of your prescribing doctor, if you take medical marijuana

Know How to Recognize an Emergency

It is important to know when to seek immediate medical attention for problems that can arise from mixing alcohol and weed. Seek immediate help if you or someone you know experiences:

Breathing problems
Intense nausea and vomiting
Diarrhea
Severe stomach cramps
Chest pain
Being awake but unresponsive
Limpness
Seizures
Confusion
Agitation or paranoia
Slow or erratic pulse
Choking sounds
Blue lips or fingernails
Pale or clammy face
Unconsciousness

These signs of overdose or THC toxicity are a medical emergency. Do not leave the person unattended until help arrives.

Seek Treatment for Substance Misuse

If you are concerned about your level of alcohol or cannabis use, seek treatment from a mental health provider who works with substance use issues. This treatment may include formal treatment, such as rehab, and community resources, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA).

The sooner that you start treatment, the lower the chances of your misuse worsening over time. Early treatment can also lead to higher treatment success, such as reduction of substance use, abstinence, improved psychological functioning, and improved quality of life.¹¹

For assistance with finding addiction treatment providers, please call 800-948-8417 Sponsored for 24/7 help from our specialists.