It’s something well familiar to many who have tried to muster up the motivation to head to the pub after a few joints. But there is now also hard evidence that smoking weed can lead people to drink less alcohol, say the team behind new research.

In a study led by Brown University researchers, volunteers were given a mix of marijuana of varying potency levels and placebos – after which they were “offered servings of their preferred alcoholic beverage on a tray” or the option of cash in lieu.

Participants were less inclined to take a drink if they had smoked a joint rather than a placebo, the researchers found, cautioning that the results “don’t mean that cannabis should be recommended as a therapeutic substitute for alcohol.”

“Cannabis reduced the urge for alcohol in the moment, lowered how much alcohol people consumed over a two-hour period and even delayed when they started drinking once the alcohol was available,” Jane Metrik, a psychiatry professor, describing the team’s findings.

The authors warned that “cannabis itself can be addictive and that — just as is the case is for alcohol — there is risk for progressing to problematic use of cannabis, as well.”

Published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the research was based on a series of laboratory visits by 157 participants described as heavy drinkers who smoke cannabis at least twice a week.