After a long night of drinking alcohol, can marijuana help get rid of that hangover?
We have probably all been there at one time or another – the night before was an alcohol binge drinking fest, and you are now paying the price today with a mild to massive hangover. Considering the amount of New Year Eve parties across America last night, I’d imagine there are more than a few people that are reading this hungover right now. You are probably desperate for ANYTHING that will make you feel better, right? Alcohol hangover symptoms include the notorious headache, upset stomach, and possibly aches and pains, plus who knows what else.
Most of the unpleasant symptoms experienced during a hangover are caused by two factors: the diuretic alcohol effect that causes the drinker to become dehydrated, and the toxic effects of alcohol poisoning of many systems of the body. Marijuana of course does not rehydrate you or flush alcohol poisons from your body.
However, it can help you indirectly by helping you eat. A commenter on a marijuana.com forum stated the following that I think sums it up nicely, “It doesn’t “cure” them… a hangover will stop once your body has rid itself of the leftover alcohol and been rehydrated. I use marijuana for hangovers because it cures my nausea and allows me to drink water (which I usually just throw back up) and get food in my stomach. It’s not a cure per se, but it definitely helps.”
I found one website called thedrunkpirate.com. The drunk pirate had the following to say about marijuana and alcohol hangovers, “I can handle the headache. It’s the nausea that kills me with a hangover. In case you don’t know it, Cannabis is prescribed to cancer patients in some states as a cure for nausea. Now I know that if you’re the type of drinker you say you are, chances are you have a friend who’s a pot head. Snag a doobie from him and stick it in a safe place (freezer) for the next time you have one of those nausea hangovers. You can wake up, take a few hits, and then eat your General Tso’s. Be warned: Don’t get too high. Being high and hungover is not fun.”
To me the biggest benefit to smoking marijuana after a long night of drinking alcohol is that it makes the hungover person more tolerant of their symptoms. Even before I have re-hydrated, and alcohol is still poisoning my blood stream, if I consume marijuana it helps my head feel better and the symptoms more tolerable. It’s not just that way for a hangover, marijuana has the same affect whenever I have almost any pain or ailment. Smoking marijuana makes me feel better every time.
One thing for all readers to take away from this article is that alcohol is literally poison, and it will make you sick if you consume too much of it. Compare that experience with marijuana, where the hangover is much less likely. I have personally never had a ‘marijuana hangover,’ but I have heard about it from other consumers, mostly rookies. How about for a New Year’s resolution, people promise to not drink alcohol next New Year’s Eve and just smoke marijuana. According to recent studies, that would result in less crashes on the streets and obviously would lead to less hungover people on January 1st!