    Marijuana and alcohol are extremely relevant in the world today, they are two of the most used drugs and they are still popularizing.  With this being said I would like to ask, which is worse alcohol or marijuana? Prior to recent research most believed marijuana was obviously worse for human consumption than alcohol. Contrary to this, modern data about the issue has the majority of experts in agreement that alcohol is the worse of the two. In this paper, I will discuss the major differences of both drugs and elaborate on how these distinctions fabricate the fact that alcohol is worse than marijuana in the overall scope of things. I will do this by comparing these drugs in multiple scenarios i.e. economic effects, direct personal effects, etc.

    As the trend of these drugs continues accidents transpiring consequently to the drugs will be ongoing as well. Every year there are approximately 88,000 deaths due to alcohol related events. This makes deaths due to alcohol the fourth largest preventable cause of death is the United States. Out of these deaths roughly 10,000 are caused by roadway alcoholic incidents plus hundreds of thousands more injuries.Being under the influence of drugs while driving is a serious issue today. In 2014 approximately one third of fatal car accidents involved someone who was alcoholically impaired; while only 7 percent of crashes include someone under the influence of THC, the main chemical in marijuana responsible for getting people high. This is an astounding difference between the two. There are over 2,100 deaths a year caused by alcohol overdose alone. On the other hand there are no deaths caused directly from marijuana consumption. Though there are no immediate deaths due to marijuana there are still obvious negative repercussions. When smoking marijuana one’s body will act abnormally. There heart rate will increase anywhere from 20 percent to 100 percent and it’s likely that one’s heart rate will stay that high for multiple hours subsequent to smoking. There is likely to be unusual heart rhythms for smokers, this is due to the the fact that marijuana smokers are 4.8 percent more likely to have heart problems and have a heart attack within the first hour of smoking. Similarly to tobacco, marijuana smoke is also bad for our lungs. It’s smoke can cause people to have coughs, colds, and an increased risk of lung infection. The smoke can also cause an increase in risk of lung cancer as the smoke from marijuana has some of the same cancer-causing chemicals found in tobacco smoke. As one can see above, both alcohol and marijuana have serious repercussions on the human body and though marijuana may not cause immediate death it can still lead to severe health problems and death in some cases.

    We all know alcohol and marijuana has effects on us directly, but how else are we affected by these drugs? Of people 18 years and older, 26.9 percent of people admit to binge drinking. This means if you’re not binge drinking one of the two people beside you probably do drink heavily. So without even drinking there is a likely chance that you will be impacted, most likely negatively, by someone(s) who are drinkers. Of 5.3 million adults incarcerated in correctional facilities 36 percent were drinking alcohol during the action of their crime. 40 percent of those who were convicted of a violent crime on the state level were under the influence of alcohol during the time of their crime. Alcohol along with other drugs are draining in the justice system. Jails and prisons are overpopulating and incarceration is expensive. The real problem is the justice system isn't working on these criminals; these correctional facilities aren't correcting these people or their drinking problem. So, we have these addicts coming out of jails ready to consume again which will lead to another possible alcohol related crime. Alcohol and marijuana also affect the economy thereby having an impact on all who are influenced by our economy. So, well, everybody. In one year the ignorant misuse of alcohol cost the United States $149 billion. 75 percent of this cost is due to binge drinking. Between 6 and 7 million workers are known alcoholics; an undetermined amount of this money loss is due to lack of productivity of these workers.

    Now I again would like to point out that marijuana is clearly a drug of less severity in comparison to alcohol. In every category alcohol turns out to have more damaging results. One can see above that alcohol has terrible economical effects while marijuana has none, in the majority of the country. Proportionally alcohol causes infinitely more deaths directly than marijuana and a staggering amount more deaths indirectly. Looking at all these statistics involving alcohol and marijuana I hope all can see that the difference between these drugs is huge and to say they’re on the same level of impurity would be dumbfounding.

    So where does this information leave us? Now knowing that alcohol is definitely a worse drug than marijuana what do we do? Some may say legalize marijuana but that doesn’t really solve the problem, if anything it will make more issues arise. If marijuana were to become legal the number of accidents involving it would drastically increase. Not only accidents involving roadway vehicles but more. Easier access and no punishment for possession leads to having marijuana in other dangerous situations such as swimming and working. This accessibility to marijuana will manage to make the drug more similar to alcohol and will only direct the crime rate involving marijuana to a new peak. I don’t think there is a realistic solution to the problems these drugs have created. As long as people have access to them, people will use them and they will cause serious issues. 
