Marijuana Moment: People Drink ‘Significantly Less Alcohol’ After Smoking Marijuana, Federally Funded Study Shows

[Tokeativity]

Smoking marijuana is associated with “significantly” reduced rates of alcohol consumption, according to a new federally funded study that involved adults smoking joints in a makeshift bar.

Researchers at Brown University investigated the science behind the trend that’s come to be known as “California sober,” referring to people who abstain from or limit the use of alcohol and most other drugs while still consuming cannabis.

According to the study, published on Wednesday in the American Journal of Psychiatry, smoking marijuana could actually be helping people moderate their drinking. That’s based on the findings of the researchers’ experiment, which involved 157 adults who reported heavy alcohol and cannabis use at least twice weekly and who were tasked with smoking joints in fabricated bar setting.

“What we found was consistent with this idea of the substitution effect popularized by the California sober trend,” Jane Metrik, a human behavior and psychiatry professor at Brown University, said in a press release. “Instead of seeing cannabis increase craving and drinking, we saw the opposite. Cannabis reduced the urge for alcohol in the moment, lowered how much alcohol people consumed over a two-hour period and even delayed when they started drinking once the alcohol was available.”

The participants were given marijuana joints containing either 7.2 percent THC, 3.1 percent THC or 0.03 percent THC (the placebo). After smoking the cannabis, they were then exposed to “neutral and personalized alcohol cues and an alcohol choice task for alcohol self-administration.”

An alcohol cue assessment that the participants completed showed that those who smoked the two higher THC concentration joints “consumed significantly less alcohol,” with an average 27 percent reduction in drinking for those who received the 7.2 percent THC joint and 19 percent for the 3.1 percent THC cohort.

Researchers said that, for participants who smoked joints with 7.2 percent THC, that also “reduced alcohol urge immediately.”

“Following overnight cannabis abstinence, smoking cannabis acutely decreased alcohol consumption compared to placebo,” it found. “Further controlled research on a variety of cannabinoids is needed to inform clinical alcohol treatment guidelines.”

"California sober"—ditching alcohol in favor of #cannabis—is gaining popularity.

Follow the link for the findings of the first ever, randomized, placebo-controlled trial to test whether smoking cannabis directly changes alcohol consumption https://t.co/NnIB5Qwvxq pic.twitter.com/8FEvN8Nxcn

— Brown University School of Public Health (@Brown_SPH) November 19, 2025

The study authors said this represents the first placebo-controlled randomized trial that specifically looks at the acute effects of marijuana use on alcohol cravings and consumption for heavy users.

“Extending the latest scientific evidence, we found that smoked cannabis with 3.1 percent and 7.2 percent THC doses acutely decreased alcohol consumption and increased latency to drink under controlled laboratory conditions, relative to placebo,” the study authors said, adding that the effects of the non-placebo joints “were not statistically different from each other.”

“The findings suggest that smoked cannabis reduces alcohol consumption and, conversely, acute cannabis deprivation (i.e., in the placebo condition) may lead to compensatory increases in alcohol intake,” the study says.

“In concert with experimental investigations and studies demonstrating substitution effects, our findings support the substitution model of cannabis and alcohol co-use. In the absence of consistent effects of cannabis on alcohol craving, a possible mechanism whereby cannabis reduces alcohol consumption may be through satiation, such that participants may have reached their preferred experiential intoxication on one drug, which may have lowered desire for the other substance. The findings also suggest that individuals titrate their alcohol consumption based on their current state of intoxication to reach a desired level of overall intoxication.”

One theory the researchers put forward as to why cannabis use seems to inhibit alcohol consumption and cravings is that most participants were daily marijuana users. Because cannabinoids downregulate certain receptors in the endocannabinoid system, that may “functionally impair alcohol reward processing and alcohol motivation.”

The researchers also noted that, while their study involved cannabis flower with relatively lower concentrations of THC compared to what’s available in state medical and adult-use markets, the findings are still relevant, indicating that alcohol consumption and cravings could also be reduced for someone taking relatively fewer hits of high-THC varieties.

Further, the study notes that the cannabinoid concentration of marijuana flower and its formulation “could influence the direction of effect on alcohol-related outcomes.”

While this experiment focused on THC, prior research on animal models has indicated that non-intoxicating CBD is also associated with reduced alcohol use—and observational studies suggest that the use of CBD is associated with lower alcohol consumption compared to THC. Therefore, “smoking cannabis flower containing CBD could lead to even greater reductions in alcohol use.”

“The study findings demonstrate that smoked cannabis induced acute increases in subjective intoxication, affect, arousal, cardiovascular effects, blood THC concentrations, and acutely reduced alcohol consumption without a consistent effect on alcohol craving,” it says. “Notably, participants still consumed alcohol after smoking cannabis with THC, although they drank less than when they were not acutely intoxicated with THC. These data provide preliminary evidence that cannabis may reduce alcohol consumption under some conditions, but whether this would result in reductions in harms associated with simultaneous use is unknown.”

“Controlled human studies like this one can help address the dearth of empirical data on alcohol consumption in relation to cannabinoid use and shed light on the inconsistent findings from epidemiological studies. Clinical research is needed on the effects of a variety of cannabinoids and endocannabinoid targets used simultaneously with alcohol versus sequentially to evaluate clinically relevant alcohol outcomes. While there is growing recognition of the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids, it would be premature and potentially risky at this time to recommend cannabis as a therapeutic substitute for alcohol or as a harm-reduction strategy for AUD. For patients who are already substituting cannabis for alcohol, clinicians should provide guidance on the risks of cannabis use disorder, help monitor cannabis use, and continue recommending evidence-based alcohol treatments.”

Metrik said that what the research team found is that “cannabis reduces the urge in the moment,” but the long-term effect warrants further investigation.

“Our job as researchers is to continue to answer these questions,” she said. “We can’t tell anyone yet, ‘you should use cannabis as a substitute for problematic or heavy drinking.’”

The study received funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) under the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Cannabis plant material used in the study was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) through its drug supply program.

While the researchers say they’re not willing to say the study definitively proves marijuana should be considered as an alcohol alternative or treatment for alcoholism, the findings are consistent with a growing body of research indicating that cannabis does have that potential—and more people are opting for the plant over alcohol.

A study published earlier this month, for example, found that adults who drink cannabis-infused beverages has found more evidence of a “substitution effect,” with a significant majority of participants reporting reduced alcohol use after incorporating cannabinoid drinks into their routines.

A survey released last month also showed that four in five adults who drink cannabis-infused beverages say they’ve reduced their alcohol intake—and more than a fifth have quit drinking alcohol altogether.

Recent polling additionally shows that younger Americans are increasingly using cannabis-infused beverages as a substitute for alcohol—with one in three millennials and Gen Z workers choosing THC drinks over booze for after-work activities like happy hours.

Another poll released last month found that a majority of Americans believe marijuana represents a “healthier option” than alcohol—and most also expect cannabis to be legal in all 50 states within the next five years.

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