Marijuana and alcohol are the most
popular drugs abused by college students across our nation. The potential consequences of these drugs
were researched in a study that administered twelve healthy, college-educated
males who has socially used the drugs before with these substances. The subjects were administered an equal dose
of either ethanol, THC extracted from marijuana, or a placebo on three separate
days over a week’s time. The study’s
focus was the Event-Related Potentials, so they kept track of heart rate and
reaction times to test this. They also
wanted to look at time as a factor in the highs the drugs produced.
The subjects of this study did not
show any adverse effects aside from one man reporting nausea after ingesting
his dose of ethanol. It showed that after taking the placebo, heart rates were
lower than when subjects took ethanol or marijuana. Overall, the ethanol gave subjects less of a
high than the marijuana. After 4.5
hours, most people who were administered ethanol reported that they were back
to baseline, while marijuana users still felt a mild high. The findings of the study showed that the
intoxication effects from marijuana and ethanol are different in terms of heart
rate and contingent negative variation.
Marijuana and alcohol act on our
bodies differently. The time it takes to
initially feel intoxicated as well as the time it takes to stop feeling
intoxicated varies between the two. The
effects on heart rate and response times vary as well, even when given comparable
doses of them. In order to get more
concrete information, as so often with drugs, more research is necessary.
Kopell, B S (01/31/1978). "Time course effects of marijuana and ethanol on event-related potentials".Psychopharmacology (Berlin, Germany) (0033-3158), 56 (1), p. 15.
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