Alcohol makes you more aggressive than cannabis

To many, it seems obvious that alcohol causes more violence-related problems than cannabis. How many late-night fights break out among a group of people smoking joints? But cannabis isn’t entirely blameless: it can, in fact, cause anxiety and paranoia in some people, which can manifest as aggressive behavior.

A a study conducted in the Netherlands sought to determine how each drug affected the response to an assault among people who had consumed alcohol or cannabis. The study included 61 participants, 20 of whom were classified as heavy drinkers (21 to 50 drinks per week for men, 15 to 35 for women), and 21 cannabis users.

In each group, participants were given either a dose of alcohol and a placebo, or cannabis and a placebo. An initial «single-category implicit association» test asked participants to associate positive and negative words with photos of violent situations. In the second test, a video game, participants could win money by pressing certain buttons, and lose it all if an opponent (the computer, in this case) stole their winnings.

Drinkers are more aggressive

The researchers predicted that «exposure to aggression would increase aggression in alcohol users while they were intoxicated, whereas it would tend to decrease aggression in cannabis users while they were using the drug.»  And ultimately, not only did the «alcohol» group behave more aggressively after drinking, but the «cannabis» group was less aggressive after smoking.

These findings were also reflected in the self-assessments: alcohol consumers rated themselves as more aggressive when they were drunk and tried harder to win at video games.

All of this goes hand in hand with another the study we were discussing here. A 2014 study showed that cannabis use within a couple was linked to lower rates of domestic violence. In the 1980s, researchers conducted a funny experiment: they gave participants varying doses of cannabis and asked them to administer electric shocks to people in the same room. The more high a participant was, the less likely they were to administer a shock.