Cannabis Beverages Vs. Alcohol
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The missing link between scientific journals and relationship counseling. The Last Show with David Cooper.
All right, if you drink a lot, you might want to consider swapping out a cold one for a cannabis beverage. Why might we want to do that? How might it help? And side note, only investigate these things if they're legal where you live. Well, I'm here with someone who has researched a lot about these beverages. Her name is Jessica Kruger. She's a professor of public health at the University at Buffalo. Jessica, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
What are the potential benefits of swapping alcohol for cannabis beverages?
So here we are. And alcohol is not necessarily the best thing to be drinking a lot, like after work to relax every day, is it?
Correct. And actually, there's a lot of harmful effects of alcohol already linked to 200 different health conditions.
Oh, that few. That seems alarming.
Exactly. And it's legal and you can get it almost anywhere.
It's one of the most dangerous drugs there is. I don't think people realize that.
Yeah, it can be, especially if you're using it daily and over-consuming.
So what made you ask the research question, could cannabis drinks, you know, like I guess made from marijuana, weed, whatever, actually help people drink less alcohol?
We started seeing these cannabis beverages pop up in dispensaries, but also some bars. Now, while that's still illegal in New York State, there are some places who have it. And some of our friends started saying, you know, I want to quit drinking. I don't feel like drinking anymore. And started replacing alcohol with cannabis beverages. And we thought this is the perfect example of some harm reduction. And we want to study it and look further at how people are using it and why.
I want to talk about harm reduction in a bit because these things aren't necessarily like completely safe or they come with risks. But this idea that they have less of a risk than alcohol is an interesting one. But first, how strong are they? What do people report the effects to be like? Is it similar to smoking cannabis? Like what exactly happens if I go into a bar and drink one of these things legally? I keep saying that.
What health risks are associated with alcohol consumption?
Well, cannabis beverages can range from about 5 milligrams THC to up to 20 milligrams. We often see them in the 5 to 10 milligram range of THC, and they usually have some CBD. Now, the important part about that is THC can cause people to feel a little anxious, and that CBD has been known to kind of take away a little bit of that anxiety. And so we see these being available in the legal market and dispensaries, again, illegal at bars currently, but we hope to investigate that further to see if we can begin to influence some policy. Now, you might think, well, you're out at a bar and you're drinking cannabis. You're going to drive home high. Well, we already know people are driving high and we know that people are driving under the influence.
So we need to better educate folks about this to reduce that harm. But ultimately, this could be a way to reduce. remove some of the effects of alcohol. Now you're going to feel similar to what you would feel if you were smoking, but it takes longer for that duration to hit, right? This is an edible, considered an edible when you're categorizing cannabis products. And so it does take longer to metabolize. And that's where some people get in trouble with edibles is they don't feel the effects right away like they do with smoking.
So they take more and then it hits like a ton of bricks?
Exactly. And that's another area where we really want to focus on education with folks of how do you use edibles properly?
So when people do incorporate this into their unwinding, having a cold one routine where they might drink, what do they end up doing? Do they end up drinking less? Does it end up curbing kind of the negative effects of alcohol?
In fact, we found that people who are using cannabis beverages are drinking less and engaging in less binge drinking. Now, this is great because we also compare that to other modalities of cannabis use, such as smoking, thinking, was it just the cannabis or is it actually the beverage?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:35
2
What are the potential benefits of swapping alcohol for cannabis beverages?
0:35–2:13
3
What health risks are associated with alcohol consumption?
2:13–4:48
4
How can cannabis beverages help reduce alcohol consumption?
4:48–8:40
5
What effects do cannabis beverages have compared to traditional alcohol?
8:40–10:09
Speakers
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