If you’ve never tried cannabis and are considering it due to its now being legal for you, you probably want to know what to expect. I have written before about what it’s like to be high, but it occurred to me it might be useful to describe it with reference to an experience you probably have had, given your curiosity about another intoxicant – being drunk as a skunk.
What Does It Feel Like To Be High?
Different people have different experiences, but that’s not to say some things are not generally true. In order to make this readable I will avoid using phrases like “for me” or “in my experience”. You should feel free to mentally…
Here Comes the Science
But what are the key differences between a person being drunk on alcohol and high on cannabis? Let’s break down some of the physical elements first.
Alcohol
When you drink alcohol, it enters your bloodstream and affects the way your body works. Alcohol is a depressant that slows down brain activity and impairs coordination, reaction time, judgment, and other cognitive functions. It also affects blood flow to the brain by dilating or expanding blood vessels in certain areas. This can lead to slurred speech and difficulty walking due to impaired balance. Higher levels of alcohol consumption can be dangerous to your physical health.
Cannabis
On the other hand, when you consume cannabis, the THC compound in it interacts with the brain’s cannabinoid receptors leading to a more relaxed feeling, but without the increased risk associated with alcohol. There is no increase in blood flow like there is with drinking so the physical side effects are largely absent, and there is no risk to your health from taking a high dose. It can suck, but wait it out and you’ll be fine.
How To Get Unhigh
A weed high is great, but as with other drugs too much THC can be bad (that’s what “too much” means!) It can make a person feel worse, not better, if too much cannabis is taken, whatever the consumption method.…
High vs Drunk
So, that’s all very well, but how different do they actually feel? They both get you intoxicated, and shift your brain into a different state where you do or say things you would not otherwise. They both relax you. They both make you feel good. They both reduce your faculties. But they do these things in very different ways.
Physically
Alcohol makes you clumsy. It slows your reaction times and makes it hard to get your body to do what you want. Your speech is slurred, you’re staggering, and you probably won’t get that key in the door the first time. You may also experience double vision as you can’t even make both your eyes look at the same thing reliably.
There’s a good reason it’s illegal to drive while drunk.
Weed, on the other hand, does not do any of these things. Physically it has no effect. You won’t slur your speech or lose your balance. Many people like to get stoned before playing video games online, as they find it doesn’t slow their reaction time or make it difficult to handle the controller but reduces the stress of the competition and allows them to enjoy it more. Try that when you’re drunk.
(There is a level of alcohol consumption that can improve your performance in these kinds of tasks, but it’s almost impossible to maintain. The great film Another Round is about this, and there was a time in my life when I was pretty ok at pool if I had exactly two and a half beers.)
The only purely physical effects of marijuana use you are likely to experience are some coughing, a dry mouth, and possibly an increased appetite. Also, unlike alcohol, marijuana doesn’t cause withdrawal symptoms after excessive drinking the night before. Indeed, unlike alcohol, marijuana is not at all physically addictive.
That’s not to say you’re ok to drive when you’re stoned! You are absolutely not. But the reason is different.
Mentally
I don’t want to give the impression that alcohol only impairs and that smoking cannabis only uplifts – cannabis certainly impairs, just differently. To take driving as an example, your dexterity will be fine, you will be perfectly capable of mechanically operating the car, and your reaction times will be perfectly ok. It’s everything else that’s the problem.
Marijuana use tends to make everything seem fine, just fine. This is nice, but when driving a car it’s a good idea to maintain a healthy awareness that you are engaged in a potentially very dangerous activity. Your reaction time may be ok, but your ability to decide what it’s important to react to is not.
You won’t be paying the proper attention. And while we’ve all had the experience of driving on autopilot we know that if something happens we snap out of it and act. You can’t just snap out of being stoned.
They differ in other ways too – alcohol lowers your inhibitions (liquid courage) and the sugar rush increases your energy, which can lead to aggression or, at the very least, increased loudness.
Weed does something superficially similar but subtly different. It lowers inhibitions, but not by removing them totally – it makes you generally less uptight and more easygoing, but still in control. You might be more likely to dance like nobody’s watching on either substance, but the reasons are different. It also does not give you energy as alcohol does – you’re more likely to just want to sit on the couch and stay there.
Socially
If there’s an area where alcohol wins, this is probably it. Alcohol has a long history of being used as a social lubricant, and it’s very good at it. It’s fun to smoke weed in a group – many laughs will be had – but the more you smoke the more likely you are to drop out of the conversation and stare at the wall for a while, whereas more alcohol will only tend to make you more garrulous (right up until you pass out).
Often when the comparison between marijuana and alcohol is made the wise words of one Snoop “Doggy” Dogg are brought up. Here they are:
But this is a pretty extreme example. I agree that if you have a bunch of people who hate each other confined together you would much prefer them to be high vs drunk, but how often does that happen to you?
Alcohol is better for deepening friendships and getting to know new people, hands down. Those sloppy “I love you, man” conversations may be cliche and embarrassing to recall, but they are also real and they matter. And there’s nothing wrong with a little liquid courage when it comes to trying to create a new relationship with a stranger out of thin air.
Marijuana users can also have great conversations, but they’re more likely to be abstract and perhaps a little weird. It’s great fun to hang out and get stoned with a bunch of people, but the conversations that occur, while entertaining, tend to be more transient and unimportant.
Put it this way – if I’m going to a wedding and I want to have fun with other people, I’ll drink. If I want to enjoy the wedding while remaining aloof from it, I’ll smoke. Your mileage may, of course, vary.
There’s just one last area I want to mention.
Flying Solo
This one is, for me, the easiest. Getting drunk alone is depressing and destructive. Getting stoned alone is relaxing and makes bad movies more fun. No contest – marijuana beats alcohol!
Conclusion
While both alcohol and cannabis can be enjoyable in moderation, it’s important to understand the key differences between them. Alcohol is a more intense experience with greater physical risks, whereas cannabis offers a more controllable sensation without the same health hazards. But alcohol is better for socializing.
The most important thing to take away from this – if you only remember one thing, let this be it – is that it’s a really bad idea to do them both at the same time. Do not mix alcohol and marijuana! That is unquestionably a fast road to a bad night.
Enjoy the smoke! Or the drink! Just not both!
