The debate of whether alcohol or weed is worse for your body is nothing new to be debated on. Everyone has their own opinion on which is healthier but only one thing can truly prove who is right and who’s wrong, facts. Statistics have proven in the past few years that marijuana is much safer for your health. Even with all these facts, however, some people still hold on to their opinion like it is all they have. In this essay I'm going to break down the scientific facts.
To start off, alcohol kills more than 88,000 people a year whether it is because they drink and drive causing accidents or they drink too much, leading to alcohol poisoning and more than likely, death. While alcohol kills, marijuana has never been the cause for anyone’s death. When people binge drink, it can easily lead to a buildup of alcohol in your brain, quickly shutting down the areas you need to survive. Marijuana does affect the cardiovascular system, speeding up your heart rate and blood pressure when feeling the effects of a marijuana high. While this does occur, a person cannot fatally overdose from smoking too much pot. The worst thing that can happen from smoking a high amount would be nausea and potential vomiting. For marijuana to become deadly someone would have to smoke anywhere from 238 to 1,113 joints in a 24-hour period. Alcohol affects nearly every organ of the body, especially the gastrointestinal tract, cardiovascular system, and central nervous system. The long-term effects of alcohol use in your body include gastritis, ulcers, liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis, hypertension, muscle weakness, and memory impairment. Other symptoms are tremors, unsteady gait, insomnia, and erectile dysfunction.
When it comes to pregnancy, drinking can cause fetal alcohol syndrome and birth defects. If a woman is an alcoholic and continues to drink every day during her pregnancy the baby will be born addicted as well. Babies born addicted to any drug is a devastating thing for any mom to have to see happen. They have withdrawal symptoms soon after their born since their supply of alcohol is cut off and sometimes might pass away. Just like any adult, alcohol withdrawal can easily become deadly to your newborn baby. Marijuana use during pregnancy, however, won’t kill your baby but it can still cause neurological damage to your baby in the long run. The most common reason pregnant mothers use marijuana is to fight off morning sickness and to help them get rest. This is a logical reason but it is still not recommended even though it isn’t very common for weed to harm your baby. Something that makes marijuana use safer than alcohol use while pregnant is that weed is not chemically addictive, meaning when your body is used to it and does not have it for a period of time you won’t go through withdrawal symptoms or potentially die.
Driving is another huge debate when it comes to alcohol versus marijuana. Both drugs alter your mental status but the differences are drastic. Every single day around 29 people die in an alcohol related car accident, which is about 10,585 people a year. You hear about drunk driving accidents all the time but how much do you hear someone died in a car accident because of weed? Not very often. A study found that smoking weed then driving increased the odds of being in an accident by 83%. Yes, this seems high but the percentage for alcohol is 2,200% which is way higher.
So, in conclusion, marijuana is proven scientifically to be much healthier and safer than alcohol. Marijuana has its downsides and own side effects but in comparison to alcohol it has many more benefits like stress and pain relief while alcohol causes you pain the day after. Alcohol versus marijuana will always be a debate and most likely never be 100% settled but we can always turn to the facts and statistics to prove our point.