Teens who drink alcohol and smoke marijuana excessively are less likely than their peers to succeed in life. The excessive use could potentially prevent young adults from pursuing further studies, getting married and earning a decent living.
Excessive Use Of Marijuana And Alcohol
In a new research, presented on Monday at the Alpha 2017 Annual Meeting and Expo in Atlanta, researchers examined the habits of 1,165 young adults when they were 12 years of age up to the stages of their adulthood, from 25 to around 34 years of age.
Sixty-seven percent of the subjects were European Americans, 26 percent were African Americans, and 7 percent were mostly Hispanics. Also, more than half of the young adults were women.
The data were collected from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). COGA was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
The Results
Overall, the results of the study reveal that the subjects, who frequently drank large amounts of alcohol and smoked marijuana heavily, displayed "lower levels of educational achievements" later in their life. Also, the majority of them weren't married, weren't able to get full-time jobs, and, as a result, had low "financial potential."
The study also shows that men were more likely to get affected and saw less achievement "across all four measures." Women dependent on either marijuana or alcohol, on the other hand, were less likely to go to college and had lower financial potential.
"This study found that chronic marijuana use in adolescence was negatively associated with achieving important developmental milestones in young adulthood." said Elizabeth Harari, the author of the study.
"Awareness of marijuana's potential deleterious effects will be important moving forward given the current move in the U.S. toward marijuana legalization for recreational/medicinal use," added Harari.
What Happens To The Body When People Mix Marijuana And Alcohol?
According to recent studies, led by psychiatry and pharmacology professor Scott Lukas of Harvard Medical School, smoking marijuana activates the body's cannabinoid 2 receptors (CB2), which affects how rapidly the body absorbs alcohol.
One of the studies has found that if a user first drank alcohol and then smoked marijuana, THC or tetrahydrocannabinol — a key active element in marijuana — levels in the body intensifies. This happens due to the fact that alcohol is capable of opening up blood vessels in the digestive system.
More Than Half Of US Adults Have Used Marijuana
According to results of a recent survey, over half of American adults have tried marijuana and 14 percent consume it on a regular basis. The survey asked Americans 18 years old and above about their personal use of marijuana and what their opinion was.
Based on the results, 56 percent of American adults find marijuana to be socially acceptable and 22 percent of adults see themselves as users — either regularly or occasionally. Among the 22 percent, the majority consists of male at 55 percent, while the remaining 45 percent are female.
