Wonder why drinking alcohol before getting stoned feels more potent? Science knows. For many seasoned stoners, the idea of mixing alcohol and marijuana is either one of joy or one of abhorrence. No matter what your views on it, one thing most agree on is that alcohol increases the intensity of the high, and science has just confirmed why.

A new study published in the journal Clinical Chemistry has concluded that drinking alcohol before enjoying a bit of MJ increases the concentration of THC, the main psychoactive compound of cannabis, within the blood. Whilst it may come as little surprise to most of you, it is another part of the cannabis mystery that is nice to have confirmed by science, instead of leaving it open to interpretation and anecdotal reports.

The research was apparently spurred by the combination of alcohol and cannabis being the most frequently detected combo of substances linked to car crashes. Historic evidence has suggested that the combination of both increases the risk of accident more than either substance alone, with cannabis use increasing risk of a car accident by 0.7, alcohol by 7.4, and the combination of the two by 8.4.

As you can imagine, this is quite worrying to some people, and to date, there has been no research actually investigating the combination of the two. This new research is the first to broach the subject, and its results are pretty indisputable – although it was conducted on a very small scale.

Researchers recruited 19 volunteers. They were either given a small dose of alcohol or a placebo. Ten minutes after drinking, they were given a hit of vaporized marijuana. It was found that those who had been given alcohol had a significantly higher concentration of THC in their bloodstream. A simple, straightforward, and noteworthy result.

Speaking about the result, lead researcher, Dr. Marilyn Huestis said, “The significantly higher blood THC … values with alcohol possibly explain increased performance impairment observed from cannabis-alcohol combinations.”

It just proves what we already know, combining intoxicants and heavy duty machinery is never a good idea, and can lead to some serious consequences. It’s not rocket science really, is it? All it takes it a bit of common sense. Don’t rip and ride, if you do, and end up hurting yourself, you give pot smokers everywhere a bad name.