Alcohol and cannabis are amongst the most commonly used substances in the world, but one may be a lot worse for you in the long run.The Institute of Human Anatomy (IOHA) has done a breakdown on the key differences by using real human cadavers to show how the substances travel through your organs and change your brain chemistry.When you have a drink, it spreads quickly throughout your body because it is easily dissolvable in water and crosses cell membranes quickly.THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, behaves differently because it is fat-soluble, allowing it to build up in fatty tissues such as the brain and stays in the system much longer.A recent video posted on the IOHA YouTube channel explains that smoking delivers THC to the bloodstream within minutes, whereas edibles pass through the liver first, making them feel more intense and longer lasting.

Alcohol, meanwhile, follows a relatively ‘predictable absorption route’ through the stomach and small intestine.“With alcohol, the effects tend to show up as direct progressive damage to organs over time,” Jonathan Bennion, IOHA director of education, explained.“Alcohol slows brain activity and over time is more likely to cause direct progressive damage to the organs, especially the liver and has a clear relationship with cancer risk.“THC, on the other hand, changes how signals are processed in the brain and tends to have effects that are more functional rather than structural.One of the dangers with alcohol is that as doses increase, the brain can actually lose the ability to form new memories altogether.“This is what leads to blackouts where a person may be awake talking and interacting, but later has no memory of what happened,” Bennion says.