Article originally published by Tonic United States.

With CBD gaining popularity, it seems like now people are mixing it with everything, including alcohol. The bar scene in Los Angeles has a huge number of CBD cocktail offerings, and breweries are selling CBD-infused beers. But is mixing CBD and alcohol really a good idea?

For those of you who don't know, cannabidiol [CBD] is a marijuana compound with relaxing effects, but it's not psychoactive in the way that tetrahydrocannabidol [THC] is, so it won't get you high. It is sold as an oil, in edibles, capsules, vaporizer and, apparently, in alcohol as well.

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Even if you don't combine them in a drink, CBD and alcohol can interact if you drink them four to eight hours apart, says James Giordano, professor of neurology and biochemistry at Georgetown University Medical Center. This means that if you have a drink with dinner and then consume some CBD before bed, the CBD may have a stronger effect than it would without alcohol.

Since alcohol and CBD relax you and lower your inhibitions, these effects can be especially strong and long-lasting when you mix both substances. "By consuming CBD you will feel very relaxed, happy, gentle. Alcohol will intensify those effects," says Giordano. "It makes some people very, very sedated." For this reason, he does not recommend this combination.

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"As in any other case, as you increase the dose of one or both, you get into a bigger problem," he explains. "The more you drink, the more CBD you consume, the effect of both is potentiated and is greater than it would be if you consumed them alone. The level of intoxication will be greater: greater loss of control, inhibition, motor coordination, and all this it becomes a problem. "

However, the effect this combination will have on you depends on the type of drunk you are. "If you are a happy drunk, then CBD could make you an even happier drunk," says Giordano. "If you're an irate or violent drunk, CBD can certainly disinhibit some of that."

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But in fact, there could be benefits to taking CBD with alcohol, suggests Soyona Rafatja, a New York-based integrative and functional family medicine physician. A study in the journal Psychopharmacology found that people who consumed alcohol and a CBD capsule had lower blood alcohol levels than those who had only consumed alcohol, despite experiencing the same cognitive and motor coordination disturbances. Another study in Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior found that rodents experienced less alcohol-induced neurodegeneration if they were given CBD via a topical gel while the alcohol was being administered.

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In another Free Radical Biology & Medicine study it was found that rodents that consumed CBD 30 minutes prior to ingesting alcohol were less likely to experience alcohol-induced oxidative damage to the liver than those that had not consumed CBD. While these are only animal studies, experts believe they are quite revealing. "Alcohol slows autophagy [breakdown of damaged cells] in the liver, causing fat to accumulate in the liver, thereby causing fatty liver, inflammation and hepatitis," Rafatjah explains. CBD does the opposite, stimulating damaged cells to degenerate, which can counteract the effects of alcohol.

On the other hand, Jordan Tishler, president of the cannabis medical practice InhaleMD and the Association of Cannabis Specialists, says there is not enough research to prove the interaction between alcohol and CBD. He's more concerned with people mixing alcohol with THC; this, he says, multiplies the THC levels in the blood by eight.

So the discussion about the effects of combining alcohol and CBD has come to no conclusion, and the experts don't even seem to agree. If you are going to combine CBD and alcohol, Giordano recommends that you at least keep the doses low and try them separately first so you know how you react to them. "To people who do not drink or consume CBD regularly, if you drink and consume CBD together, I wish you good luck because the result will be unpredictable," he says. "If there is any possible prediction, it is that this person will be very drugged."