The question of whether alcohol or marijuana is worse for health is being debated once again, this time, sparked by comments that President Barack Obama made in a recent interview with The New Yorker magazine.

“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,” Obama said during the interview. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

But how apt is the comparison between these substances? While both are intoxicants used recreationally, their legality, patterns of use and long-term effects on the body make the two drugs difficult to compare.Sponsored Links10 Reasons Men Are Jumping on This Radical New Face CreamParticle

Both alcohol consumption and pot smoking can take a toll on the body, showing both short- and long-term health effects, though alcohol has been linked to some 88,000 deaths per year, according to the CDC, while for a number of reasons those associated with marijuana use are harder to come by. And research into marijuana’s health effects is still in its infancy, compared with the rigorous studies looking at alcohol and human health.CLOSEhttps://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.495.1_en.html#goog_844805260 seconds of 2 minutes, 36 secondsVolume 0% PLAY SOUND

Short-term health consequences

Drinking too much alcohol can quickly kill a person. The inability to metabolize alcohol as quickly as it is consumed can lead to a buildup of alcohol in the brain that shuts down areas necessary for survival, such as those involved with heartbeat and respiration. [7 Ways Alcohol Affects Your Health]

“You can die binge-drinking five minutes after you’ve been exposed to alcohol. That isn’t going to happen with marijuana,” said Ruben Baler, a health scientist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “The impact of marijuana use is much subtler.”

(Of course, subtle effects don’t equate with no danger, as is the case with smoking cigarettes, which is linked with 440,000 deaths per year in the U.S.)

Marijuana affects the cardiovascular system, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, but a person can’t fatally overdose on pot like they can with alcohol, Baler said.

Alcohol is more likely than marijuana to interact with other drugs. The way that alcohol is metabolized, or broken down, in the body, is common to many drugs that are taken for a variety of conditions, said Gary Murray, acting director of the Division of Metabolism and Health Effects at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

This means that for people taking drugs or medications while drinking, the alcohol can increase or decrease levels of the active drug in the body.

“Those things can make it very hit and miss, whether you’re getting an active dose of a medication,” Murray said.

Still, both drugs can affect health in indirect ways, too.Drunken Rat Sobers Up To Love – It’s Just Hormones!Aninebriated rat regains control of its coordination when the “love hormone” oxytocin is infused through its brain. Researchers at the University of Sydney and University of Regensburg compared the behavior of such hormonally-sobered rats to normally functioning rats and alcohol infused rats.https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.495.1_en.html#goog_844805250 seconds of 2 minutes, 0 secondsVolume 0% PLAY SOUND

Because marijuana can impair coordination and balance, there is the risk of hurting oneself, particularly if someone drives or chooses to have unprotected sex while their inhibitions are lowered, Baler said. These are two areas where people using marijuana could hurt themselves for the short and long term.

You might not think marijuana and quizzes go together, but on the assumption that you arrived at this quiz sober, we pose some serious questions that will require your utmost attention and critical thinking skills. Good luck.

Pot Quiz: Test Your Marijuana Knowledge, Dude!

Long-term health consequences

The long-term effects of drinking heavily are well known. “Excess alcohol is going to lead to very severe consequences, and chronic excess alcohol is the most likely to lead to a lot of threatening issues,” Murray said.

Drinking can lead to alcoholic liver disease, which can progress to fibrosis of the liver, which in turn can potentially lead to liver cancer, Murray said.

“I emphasize ‘can’ – it’s not even clear to the best scientists what are the triggers that allow that progression to happen,” he said, noting that why some people have a higher risk than others of developing liver disease from drinking is not understood medically or biochemically.Advertisement

Unlike alcohol, Baler said, the effects of chronic marijuana use are not as well established. Animal studies have indicated some possible impact on reproduction. Additionally, there is evidence marijuana can worsen psychiatric issues for people who are predisposed to them, or bring them on at a younger age. Finally, Baler said, because the drug is typically smoked, it can bring on bronchitis, coughing and chronic inflammation of the air passages.

But while early studies showed some evidence linking marijuana to lung cancer, subsequent studies have debunked that association. Baler said it’s unclear why marijuana smoke does not have the same result as tobacco smoke on the lungs, but perhaps some beneficial compounds in the marijuana smoke cancel out the ill effects, or perhaps the other health habits of marijuana smokers are different from those of cigarette smokers.

But cigarette smoking plays a complicated role in studying the impact of marijuana smoke, Baler said. Marijuana smokers tend to smoke much less than cigarette smokers, as some may smoke one joint a few times a week.

“It’s a very tough epidemiological nut to break,” Baler said.

Additionally, researchers looking to study long-term marijuana use have had difficulty in finding people who regularly smoke marijuana but don’t also smoke tobacco cigarettes. And the illegality of marijuana has also limited research in this field.

For marijuana, much of the concern is with young people who use the drug, because the drug interferes with the development of the brain while it is still maturing, Baler said.