Combining cannabis edibles and alcohol makes you a more dangerous driver than either alone

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-05-02 01:00

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A small US study of 25 adults found people who ate cannabis brownies and washed them down with alcohol were more dangerous drivers and performed worse on sobriety tests than those who had just been given alcohol or cannabis. The team gave people brownies containing either 0mg, 10mg, or 25mg of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the active component in cannabis - and also gave them either alcoholic drinks calculated to cause breath alcohol concentrations (BrAC) of 0%, 0.05%, or 0.08%, or soft drinks disguised as alcohol. Unsurprisingly, they found the worst drivers, and those who performed worst in the sobriety tests, were the people who had been given the biggest doses of both drugs. They found that people with a 0.05% BrAC who had consumed 10mg of THC were as impaired as someone with a BrAC of 0.08% who had been given the inactive brownies, while those with a 0.05% BrAC who had consumed 25mg THC were even more impaired. The findings suggest drink-driving limits may be too high if people are also consuming cannabis, the experts conclude.