The first study of its kind shows that people who smoke marijuana and consume alcohol at the same time over a year or more are more likely to drive while drinking, harm themselves, and have serious social consequences. The results of the study conducted by Meenakshi S. Subbaraman, associate scientist at the Alcohol Research Group, a program of the Public Health Institute, are hardly surprising. The research was necessary to validate what people with a tad of common sense would already suspect.
The data set for the study was collected from the 2005 and 2010 National Alcohol Survey and included 4,104 men and 4,522 women that were over the age of 18 years of age. The definition of concurrent use of alcohol and cannabis was using pot and alcohol over a period of one year but not at the same time. Simultaneous use of pot and alcohol was considered to be using both substances together but not necessarily every time a person drank or used pot.
The people that drank and used pot simultaneously for the majority of times they indulged in a year experienced more instances of driving while drinking, more instances of serious social consequences like losing a job, and were more likely to harm themselves. The study did not examine the arrest record of any of the individuals involved in the study. Likewise, the research did not and could not evaluate any mental or emotional problems that led to the higher rates of adverse results and behaviors in people that drank and smoked pot at the same time most of the time.
A definitive study was necessary for the researchers to use to approach governments with the simple message to not use pot or alcohol and drive. The research is the first and only peer-reviewed study of the consequences of the use of alcohol and pot at the same time. Colorado quickly passed a law against driving and smoking pot when pot was liberated in Colorado. The legal limit for THC in the blood stream in Colorado is five nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood.
