Study: Using Cannabis Prior To Drinking Results in Significantly Less Alcohol Consumption

OG Article By NORML Watch Today's LIVE Episode on X and Rumble

and Youtube

September 05 2025

Fort Collins, CO: Subjects drink less alcohol and experience fewer alcohol cravings after consuming cannabis, according to data published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Researchers affiliated with Colorado State University assessed adults’ willingness to consume alcohol in a laboratory setting. Participants were offered drinks every fifteen minutes during a one-hour session.

During visits where participants were permitted to consume cannabis before the session, subjects reduced their intake of alcoholic beverages by 25 percent.

Investigators reported: “We tested whether cannabis serves as a substitute for alcohol in a sample of community adults who drink heavily and use cannabis regularly. Consistent with our hypothesis,…

self-administering cannabis before alcohol significantly reduced alcohol consumption compared to when alcohol was offered without cannabis.

Furthermore, we found a trend toward an acute reduction in alcohol craving following cannabis and alcohol co-administration compared to alcohol administration alone,…

suggesting that craving reduction may be a plausible mechanism through which cannabis substitution for alcohol could occur in some individuals.”

The study’s authors concluded, “[These findings] provide … support for the idea that legal-market cannabis can serve as substitute for alcohol among some individuals who engage in heavy drinking.”

According to survey data published in 2024 in The Harm Reduction Journal, 60 percent of cannabis consumers say that their cannabis use results in less frequent alcohol consumption.

Full text of the study, “Cannabis administration is associated with reduced alcohol consumption: Evidence from a novel laboratory co-administration paradigm,” appears in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.