Jane Metrick

It is telling us that cannabinoids could play a potential therapeutic role in alcohol use disorder.

In an elaborate and provocative experiment, scientists doled out joints and constructed a fake bar in the laboratory.

They recruited about 160 people and found those who smoke the higher potency cannabis ended up drinking 27% less alcohol and the lower potency about 19% less compared to the placebo.

Jane Metrick at Brown University led the study.

Metric and other researchers acknowledge cannabis itself is not harm-free and concerns about the drug also need to be weighed, and that more research needs to be done before making any kind of recommendations.

Will Stone, NPR News.