There are plenty of factors to account for, including how the substances affect your brain, heart and behavior, and how likely you are to get hooked. While some effects of usage are noticeable immediately, others only begin to appear after months or years of use; hence time needs to be accounted for as well.

Let us consider some factors individually:

• Alcohol causes violence: Several studies have discovered a considerable relationship between drinking and violent behaviour. No such relationship exists for marijuana users.
• Smoking speeds up your heart rate drinking slows it down: Active smoking is linked with a speeded heart rate and hence a higher risk of cardiac arrests and failures. However, drinking a small amount of alcohol reduces the risk of a heart attack.
• Intoxication and road accidents: We know that alcohol content in one’s blood increases the risk of a road accident exponentially. No such link is apparent between marijuana and road accidents.
• Alcohol causes cancer: Chronic usage of alcohol is strongly linked to increased risk of breast cancer. Initially it was suggested that marijuana also causes lung cancer. That idea, however, has been debunked.
• Marijuana is less addictive than alcohol: Statistics prove that a lesser proportion of the weed smoking population is addicted to the substance while a much larger section of the drinking population is addicted.

• Alcohol is associated with weight gain: Sure, we know weed makes you hungry but research proves that regular smokers stand a lower risk of obesity than non smokers. Alcohol, on the other hand, is linked to a higher risk of becoming overweight or obese.
• Both the substances are linked with higher risk of psychiatric diseases: Frequent drinkers run a higher risk of depression and anxiety. While regular weed smokers are at a higher risk of schizophrenia.
• Both the substances are known to affect the user’s memory: Chronic drinkers are more susceptible to blackouts where the brain becomes temporarily unable to for new memories while regular weed smokers show signs of poorer verbal memory.
• Fatality: Close to 2.5 million alcohol related deaths are annually reported worldwide. While absolutely zero deaths in the history of mankind can be linked to marijuana usage.

Now that all the facts are out in the open, it is clear that marijuana is a lot less dangerous to the brain than alcohol is. Therefore it is HIGH time to legalise marijuana (pun definitely intended) so that its usage can be regulated and the population can get acquainted with a safer form of intoxication.