Drunk and Stoned Brain: Mixing Weed with Alcohol
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Drunk and stoned can either be a great time, or the alcohol and smoking weed can quickly turn on you.
Alcohol and weed are the two most commonly used drugs throughout the world. But, of course, they can offer very different results independently.
Being drunk and stoned vary from person to person, but what happens when you are under the influence of both?
Alcohol affects the central nervous system (CNS). It does this by how your neurons change communication with one another.
Weed and Alcohol
It suppresses the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate well, increasing the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA.
Which then causes information flow to slow down, making you perceive less, remember less, and feel less.
Marijuana, on the other hand, contains THC, which acts on your brains’ cannabinoid receptors and causes some neurons in the brain to fire continuously—removing their standard refractory period allowing your thoughts and imagination to become magnified.
As weed and alcohol inhibit glutamate transmission, a vital part of the learning process is linked to insufficient memory.
Drunk and Stoned Studies
A study involving rats found that their ability to recognize objects was severely well drunk and stoned.
Some studies show that after the volunteers took two shots of alcohol, the THC in their blood plasma doubled compared to those who got the drink and a placebo. This means that alcohol makes you substantially higher.
The volunteers also reported feeling the effects from the weed more quickly, having a better high, feelings of euphoria, and having better moods.
Scientists hypothesize that this is due to vasodilation, as alcohol causes increased blood flow, the muscle cells in your arteries to relax, and the widening blood vessels.
This allows THC to cross the alveoli sack, a part of the lung where gas exchange occurs with the blood, showing that alcohol increases THC absorption.
Other studies have shown smoking cannabis may even reduce the damage that alcohol causes to the liver. When you drink, alcohol is metabolized by the enzymes called cytochrome p4502E1.
Although, after drinking excessively, this process causes oxidative stress making cells in the liver become fatty, known as steatosis.
A chemical in marijuana known as cannabidiol causes this oxidative stress that protects the liver against alcohols damage.
Before you allow alcohol and weed to become your go-to party mix, it is crucial to consider that pot prevents you from vomiting. This is why medical marijuana is prescribed to help patients ease their nausea.
However, in the case of alcohol poisoning, vomiting is the body’s ability to reject the poison. Therefore, suppressing your ability to vomit may pose some serious health risks, such as death.
