The Brief

Could smoking pot lead people to drink less alcohol?

In an elaborate and provocative experiment, scientists doled out joints and free drinks to see whether this idea — sometimes described as "California sober" — survived scientific scrutiny.

The new research offers some of the strongest data yet suggesting that smoking weed does, at least in the short term, curb how much people drink.

The findings were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on Wednesday — and are sure to raise questions about the merits of swapping one of these substances for another, especially given growing concern in the public health field about the popularity of cannabis.

And the researchers are cautious about making any recommendations based on their findings at this point.

"We're not ready to tell people seeking treatment for alcohol, go ahead and substitute cannabis, and it will work out for you," says Jane Metrik, a professor of behavioral and social science at Brown University who led the study.

But the research does bring scientists closer to understanding the link between these two substances, at a time when many people are leaning on marijuana to cut back on drinking, without waiting for the evidence.

"This study really moves the field forward by helping to resolve one of the unresolved questions in the literature," says Jeff Wardell, a professor of psychology at York University. "This gives us more confidence that there's a real effect here."

Jane Metrik, left, and members of her lab working in the Bar Lab measuring alcoholic drinks and weighing cannabis.

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Nick Dentamaro/Brown University

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Getting high for science

In the Brown study, the team took pains to replicate the real-life circumstances of getting stoned and drinking, while still maintaining a tightly controlled study that could point toward a causal relationship.

They constructed a laboratory that resembles a bar, with comfy seats and a tap, and ensured each participant had their preferred alcoholic beverage on hand.

"We wanted to make sure that when given the opportunity, you would be really driven to drink," says Metrik, who ended up spending substantial time shuttling between liquor stores looking for special vintages and spirits.

The experiment included three separate sessions. In one of them, participants smoked a marijuana joint with higher levels of the psychoactive compound, THC; in another they used a lower potency strain; and the last, researchers gave them a placebo with a trace amount of THC that wasn't enough to get them high.

After toking up in a designated smoking room, each participant spent the next two hours in the "bar lab" on their own where they had the opportunity to drink up to eight mini drinks.

The people who smoked the higher potency cannabis ended up drinking 27% less alcohol, and the lower potency about 19% less, compared to the placebo. People who used cannabis also delayed their drinking.

"It is an important signal that we're detecting," says Metrik. "It is telling us that cannabinoids could play a potential therapeutic role in alcohol use disorder."

Previous research has suggested that cannabis may reduce alcohol cravings and how much people drink. But the results have been largely inconclusive, in part because the data often come from observational studies, which are less reliable and can be muddied by other factors. Animal studies have also indicated potential biological mechanisms behind weed's effect on alcohol; however, there's a question of how much this applies to humans.

The new study also builds on what a team of researchers in Colorado reported earlier this year in a slightly different experiment.

There, participants instead picked up their marijuana from a dispensary, smoked it at home and then visited a mobile lab parked nearby, where they were offered alcoholic beverages.

The amount people ended up drinking dropped by about 25% when they were already stoned. Cravings also went down.

"These findings are all converging on a similar story," says Hollis Karoly, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Anschutz who led the study. But she points out there are still big questions about how much you can extrapolate from this new evidence.

A lab member rolls a joint as part of the study of weed's effect on drinking.

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Nick Dentamaro/Brown University

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Replacing one problem with another?

One obvious limitation is that how someone behaves when every sip they are taking is under close observation may not necessarily reflect what happens in a much looser, real-world social setting.

And beyond that, Karoly says this pattern toward reduced alcohol consumption wasn't true for everyone in their study. In a minority of people, it actually led them to drink more.

"This really highlights the fact that individual differences matter," she says.

Another unanswered question centers on who's being studied.

Most of the people in the Brown trial met the criteria for "cannabis use disorder," and about 40% for alcohol use disorder. That could indicate their "drug of choice" was not necessarily alcohol in the first place, says Rajita Sinha, a professor of psychiatry at Yale University.

For people with problem drinking, cannabis might be a potential treatment, she says. This approach, on the other hand, "may also be promoting more cannabis use and that would be problematic."

"Once you're in the throes of daily cannabis use, it's very hard to kick that habit," she says.

Those involved in this work acknowledge the tension in this line of research.

Cannabis doesn't carry the same risks of extreme harm as alcohol, which is a leading cause of preventable death in the U.S and kills more than 170,000 people a year.

But Wardell says cannabis is clearly "not a harm-free substance," either.

While research on its effect has not kept up with its surging popularity, studies have shown marijuana can impair cognition and memory, trigger a serious gastrointestinal syndrome that causes nausea and vomiting, increase the risk of psychosis and other psychiatric illness, and impact relationships and social functioning.

And Wardell says this latest study doesn't actually tell us whether the negative outcomes of alcohol are worse than cannabis in the long run.

"We would have to choose which one for a given individual might be less harmful and make sure that it's not inadvertently just replacing one problem with another," he says.

In her role as a clinical psychologist, Metrik at Brown has seen some patients with severe alcoholism who successfully stopped drinking with the help of cannabis, though some have then gone on to develop issues with that drug.

In her mind, the problem right now is that many people are relying on cannabis to treat their alcohol problems, without any guidance.

"We see this all the time, and we don't know what to tell them," she says. "There's no clear messaging,"
Copyright 2025 NPR

Updated March 31, 2026 at 19:43 PM ET

President Trump has escalated his efforts to reshape American elections, signing an executive order that seeks to create lists of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state, and instructs the U.S. Postal Service to play a larger role in states' mail voting programs.

Trump said in the Oval Office Tuesday that he believes the order is "foolproof" and may or may not be tested in court. But election experts said the order was unconstitutional and prominent voting rights attorneys quickly threatened to sue to block the order from going into effect.

A previous executive order on elections, signed about a year ago, has been blocked by federal judges who said the president lacked the constitutional authority to set voting policy.

The Constitution says the "Times, Places and Manner" of federal elections are determined by individual states, with Congress able to enact changes.

Trump has long railed — baselessly — about widespread illegal voting by noncitizens and fraud with mail ballots. The new executive order — which was first reported by The Daily Caller — takes aim at both.

The order instructs the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to "compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State."

The executive order comes as Trump's Justice Department is seeking sensitive voter data from states, and is engaged in more than two dozen lawsuits for that data. The administration claims it needs the data to enforce states' voter list maintenance. Federal judges in three states have dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuits in those states.

In another case, a DOJ official admitted in court last week that the department plans to share that data with the Department of Homeland Security, to run it through the so-called SAVE system to search for noncitizens.

NPR has reported that some U.S. citizens have also been inaccurately flagged by SAVE.

Trump's order also targets mail voting, claiming that "additional measures are necessary" to secure voting by mail – a form of voting he has used himself but has also maligned for years. In the 2024 general election, nearly a third of voters cast mail ballots.

The order says that a state's mail voters should be cleared by federal officials and that all mail ballots be tracked by USPS. Envelopes must also be reviewed by the Postal Service.

"Unique ballot envelope identifiers, such as bar codes, enable confirmation that only citizens receive and cast ballots, reducing the risk of fraud and protecting the integrity of Federal elections," the order says.

This would be a significant change to how mail-in ballot programs are currently administered in American elections, which are largely carried out by state and local officials.

The Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for expanded voting access and sued to block Trump's last elections order, said in a statement that the president "has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern our elections."

"Our government's citizenship lists are incomplete and inaccurate," the group said on X. "The United States Postal Service is overburdened and inadequate. This combines a car crash with a train wreck."

And the order also comes as Trump pressures Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election overhaul that would impose new voter identification and documentation requirements. 

That bill is stalled in the Senate due to Democratic opposition and the legislative filibuster.

The Supreme Court is also expected to rule this year on whether Mississippi should be allowed to count mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day. The legal challenge, which could have more sweeping implications for mail-in voting nationwide, was filed by the Republican National Committee and Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Federal immigration officials arrested more than 14,000 people in the greater Los Angeles area in 2025 — the majority of whom had no criminal record, according to an LAist analysis of new data from the Deportation Data Project.

The data project, an initiative between UCLA and UC Berkeley, publishes federal data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

In 2025, federal officials arrested 14,394 people, up from 4,681 the year prior. Forty-six percent of people arrested had criminal convictions, 15% had pending charges, and 39% had no criminal charges or convictions.

In a December news release, the Department of Homeland Security said it had arrested more than 10,000 people in the L.A. area since immigration raids began in June of last year, including "murderers, kidnappers, sexual predators and armed carjackers,” but did not publish details of the number of people who had criminal records.

The data from the Deportation Data Project shows that arrests in L.A. spiked in June, and about two-thirds of people arrested that month had no criminal convictions.

More than 313,000 people were arrested by ICE nationwide in 2025, according to an LAist analysis.

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said the agency has not “verified the accuracy, methodology or analysis of the project and its results” and said “this only reveals how data is manipulated to peddle the false narrative that DHS is not targeting the worst of the worst.” The spokesperson said 61% of people ICE arrested across the country either had criminal convictions or pending charges.

The agency has regularly published press releases identifying people they have arrested and who they have called “the worst of the worst,” including from the raids in L.A. in June. But an LAist investigation and reporting from other outlets has found that some of the people on those lists already has been in custody and were serving lengthy sentences.

Small businesses struggling financially have another program they could qualify for to help pay the bills.

The program is for businesses in Council District 1, which includes the neighborhoods of Koreatown, Pico Union, Westlake, MacArthur Park and Highland Park.

Individual brick-and-mortar businesses can qualify for grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, while street vendors can receive about $3,000, according to city officials. A total of $400,000 is available through the program, and applications are now open. 

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez announced the program’s goal, describing it as a way to support locally owned businesses navigating rising operating costs, shifting customer patterns, and the impacts of recent wide-scale events, like the ongoing immigration raids, along with wildfires, and broader economic uncertainty.

Small businesses struggling financially have another program they could qualify for to help pay the bills.

Who is eligible?

The program is open to independently owned businesses and street vendors located within District 1.

To qualify, businesses must have a valid Los Angeles business license and have been operating in Council District 1 since December 2020, with some flexibility for street vendors. They also need to show they’ve been financially impacted by any largescale events, like the COVID pandemic, immigration enforcement, or the broader economy. Businesses that changed owners can also apply if they’re essentially running the same operation.

How can the money be used?

Grants can be used for daily operational expenses, including rent, payroll, utilities, overhead and other business costs. Roochnik said the funding could also help businesses cover missed rent payments.

Who is running the program?

The grants will be distributed in partnership with the PACE Business Development Center and New Economics for Women. The two organizations provide support to small and immigrant-owned businesses across Los Angeles.

How will recipients be selected?

Funding will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, with applications remaining open until funds run out, Roochnik said. 

What’s the goal?

Hernandez said the program is meant to help stabilize neighborhoods that have been affected by immigration enforcement and economic hardships.

“These small businesses are the backbone of our neighborhoods,” she said, adding the funding is meant to help them “stay open, keep workers employed, and continue serving our communities.”

Naomi Villagomez Roochnik, CD1 communications director, said the announcement was made during a press conference at Delicias Bakery and Some, a longtime Latina-owned business in Highland Park. The neighborhood has experienced significant rising rents due to gentrification and the location was meant to highlight the kinds of businesses the program is meant to support.

How to apply:

To apply, small businesses and vendors can complete the application at bit.ly/cd1smallbizsupport.

Is this a one-time program or part of a larger effort?

The grant is part of a pilot program, with the possibility of it expanding depending on demand and outcomes. The council office has launched similar aid efforts in the past, Roochnik said, such as food distribution and rental assistance. 

Businesses that may not qualify for this specific grant can be connected to other resources, according to Roochnik, including the city’s legacy business program, which is for businesses operating for at least 20 years. 

The post Small businesses, vendors struggling against ICE raids, economic uncertainty eligible for up to $10,000 in grants appeared first on LA Local.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled Tuesday that construction on President Trump's White House ballroom "must stop until Congress authorizes its completion."

Using a notable number of exclamation points, Leon said the plaintiff, the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, is likely to succeed in their lawsuit and therefore he is granting a preliminary injunction to halt construction.

"The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!" Leon wrote.

Leon said however that he will delay the enforcement of the injunction for 14 days because he expects the administration to appeal immediately. He also said he would allow construction to continue for "the safety and security of the White House" – a clear reference to the secure bunker being constructed under the building.

A long-time dream project for President Trump, the ballroom is designed to seat 1,000 guests and will cost at least $300 million, according to estimates by the president. It has generated massive controversy and public pushback, but recently got approval from the Commission of Fine Arts, an architectural review panel now packed with Trump allies. The commission voted to give it a final signoff despite not seeing the final design. It had received more than 2,000 public comments, which according to staff were 99% negative.

The National Capital Planning Commission is set to vote on the ballroom project during a meeting on Thursday.

President Trump responded to the ruling in a social media post complaining that the National Trust for Historic Preservation doesn't appreciate his efforts at "sprucing up" Washington's buildings from the White House to the Kennedy Center.

"So, the White House Ballroom, and The Trump Kennedy Center, which are under budget, ahead of schedule, and will be among the most magnificent Buildings of their kind anywhere in the World, gets sued by a group that was cut off by Government years ago, but all of the many DISASTERS in our Country are left alone to die. Doesn't make much sense, does it?" he wrote.

Leon had previously allowed the construction to continue in a February ruling. In that filing, the National Trust for Historic Preservation argued the president hadn't followed proper procedure in tearing down the East Wing of the White House and soliciting private donations to fund the $300-million ballroom.

In that February opinion, Leon wrote that he wasn't making a determination on the merits because of the way the suit had been framed. He concluded, saying that if the group were to amend its complaint "the Court will expeditiously consider it and, if viable, address the merits of the novel and weighty issues presented."

Copyright 2026 NPR