Legalizing Marijuana and Road Safety: Time for a New Perspective?

[Horse]

The landscape of marijuana legalization has drastically changed in recent years, with 23 states and Washington, D.C. now allowing its legal personal use. An inevitable question arises: Has the increased accessibility to cannabis correlated with more traffic crashes?

In a detailed study spearheaded by David Straughan and his team, it was observed that states such as California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada, which embraced marijuana legalization in 2016, witnessed either a decline or no change in traffic fatalities over the subsequent three years. This is in contrast to a slight uptick in states where cannabis remains prohibited. A broader study encompassing both U.S. and Canadian data found no statistically significant alterations in crashes post-legalization.

However, data from 2020 and 2021 paints a different picture. These years were marked by the global COVID-19 pandemic, leading to significant behavioral changes in drivers, such as reduced overall traffic but increased instances of high-speed driving due to emptier roads. This coincided with an uptick in traffic fatalities. During these years, substance abuse issues also surged, possibly exacerbating vehicular crashes.

The issue is that the behavioral changes observed during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 are not aberrations. During this period, states with legalized marijuana saw a 19.9% rise in fatalities, while the US as a whole experienced an 18.9% increase.

Statistically significant? Not sure.

The author excluded data intentionally after 2019 to try to control for the COVID period's rise in fatal crash rate. The concern is that the data for 2022 mirrors that of 2021 closely.

While marijuana undeniably impacts cognitive functions and motor skills, its exact role in unsafe driving remains ambiguous. The American Journal of Addictions observed that many marijuana-intoxicated drivers exhibited only minor impairments during actual road tests, especially among frequent users.

The undeniable fact remains: alcohol, which is fully legal, plays a role in nearly one-third of all traffic fatalities, while marijuana is banned in many regions.

The takeaway? While the research presented offers a nuanced perspective, a new study that can directly assess drivers' behavior in states post-legalization and its true impact on crash risk could be invaluable. I think this type of research would benefit from actual observational and behavioral data methodologies and moving past relying on correlation.

Last point: It's interesting that the website chose to depict a driver smoking while simultaneously using a phone. Unlike marijuana, we know precisely how much smartphone distraction contributes to crashes. 34% of all crashes detected by CMT involve a driver having their phone in their hand just a minute before impact.

From a LinkedIn post here (don’t know whether you have to be signed in to read comments):
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity ... 55233-iUhY

Links to:
https://qz.com/advisor/auto-insurance/h ... less-safe/

[weeksy]

Is there a roadside test the same as for alcohol?

[Horse]

There's a saliva test, which also identities cocaine.

Guessing, like alcohol breath tests, results need subsequent confirmation (probably blood test).

[KungFooBob]

You drive loads slower when you're high, someone told me once.

[Horse]

You drive loads slower when you're high, someone told me once.

For wisdom teeth extraction, I was dosed with Valium. Knew what was happening, totally didn't care. But people drive while on it (admittedly lower doses).

[Noggin]

I got stoned once. Accidentally!! I know, I know - accidentally you say, wink wink!!

I went to party with a mate at a family members flat. I'd never smoked anything (or eaten 'brownies' or taken any other drug, didn't drink!) and was, as it turns out, spectacularly naive about things like that! EVERYONE, including my mate, was smoking. I saw people inhale the smoke from a bottle that was pushed into a bucket of water (one of whom reached for his inhaler afterwards whilst attempting to cough up a lung!!), eat brownies, all sorts - but only dope/weed, whatever it was called then.

I didn't eat the brownies cos I was driving and didn't want to get high before driving.

How stupid was I!!

Small flat, 20 ish people all smoking - of couorse I was stoned as hell!!


We got in the car to drive home and my mate was mellowed out in the passenger seat - I was hanging onto the steering wheel for dear life because I was sure we were doing 300mph (in a Datsun 120Y, I know, I know!!).

We were doing approx 20mph!!


I've never driven under the influence of drugs or alcohol since then!!!

[DefTrap]

You drive loads slower when you're high, someone told me once.

I think I've only ever driven whilst stoned once - and it was motorbiking as it happens. It was nighttime, I recall it being lovely and the stars whizzing like that bit in Star Trek where they put the warp drives on. I was on my terrible old zed though, so marijuana definitely lies!

I was definitely distracted and almost certainly a danger to myself and others. One of the bigger issues with this sort of thing is that I always found it difficult to judge how much I'd taken - it's not like the drink where a pint is 'probably ok' - it's perfectly easy to get wasted on a few drags of grass these days.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Is there a roadside test the same as for alcohol?

They just ask you for your opinion of the Dave Matthews Band.

[Horse]

I got stoned once. Accidentally!! I know, I know - accidentally you say, wink wink!!

A friend glued the headlining of his car back in, then 4 of us travelled 10 miles with the windows up ...

Whoops

[Cousin Jack]

If we were starting from scratch, eg if alcohol was newly-discovered, it would be banned. Not sure if that would actually work, the US tried banning it a few years back, with a spectacular lack of success. Marijuana seems be so common in many settings that banning it is probably doomed, but that doesn't make it any safer for driving.

My take would be, like airline pilots, a 12 hour rule AND an absolute limit. If you are over the limit, you are out. If you are under the limit but still show some signs/test positive then you will be out if you can be shown to have had ANY within 12 hours of starting that drive. Safe, fair, but probably far too difficult to actually implement.

[Taff]

I really can't see how legalising something that's used so widely anyway would change the accident rate.
People that use, will use.
People that are happy to drug drive will still drug drive.

[mangocrazy]

I'd echo Noggin's experience that driving while stoned makes you over-estimate vehicle speed, while alcohol can make you under-estimate vehicle speed. But shouldn't the point be that tests for cannabis-impaired driving should be developed that are broadly analogous to those employed for alcohol-impaired driving? In other words there needs to be a threshold past which a cannabis-impaired driver is regarded as unsafe, in the same way that alcohol testing is performed.

Having said that, all things being equal I'd prefer to be a passenger in a car driven by a stoned driver than I would being a passenger in a car driven by a pissed driver.

[Horse]

In other words there needs to be a threshold past which a cannabis-impaired driver is regarded as unsafe, in the same way that alcohol testing is performed.

The Road Traffic Act 1988 makes it an offence to drive while unfit through drink or drugs, and regulations which came into force in 2015 brought in a threshold-based offence of driving with blood concentrations of 2 micrograms of THC per litre, regardless of fitness.

[mangocrazy]

In other words there needs to be a threshold past which a cannabis-impaired driver is regarded as unsafe, in the same way that alcohol testing is performed.

The Road Traffic Act 1988 makes it an offence to drive while unfit through drink or drugs, and regulations which came into force in 2015 brought in a threshold-based offence of driving with blood concentrations of 2 micrograms of THC per litre, regardless of fitness.

Well - every day is a school day. Never knew that.

[Horse]

In other words there needs to be a threshold past which a cannabis-impaired driver is regarded as unsafe, in the same way that alcohol testing is performed.

The Road Traffic Act 1988 makes it an offence to drive while unfit through drink or drugs, and regulations which came into force in 2015 brought in a threshold-based offence of driving with blood concentrations of 2 micrograms of THC per litre, regardless of fitness.

Well - every day is a school day. Never knew that.

I'd guessed there must be, but Googled to be sure

[Supermofo]

I always found getting stoned happened much quicker than getting pissed, but equally wore off a lot quicker. I've never driven stoned but have after a couple of hours and felt fine. Whereas 2 hrs after being properly drunk I'd never have driven.

When I was young loads of people I knew smoked weed whilst driving and most honestly didn't see a problem with it! I often smell weed coming out of car windows when filtering in traffic, scares the crap outta me as being stoned is not good for driving.

[Greenman]

I have and know people who drive stoned (just cannabis) all the time, none of them have ever had an accident.

I agree if you have been bonging hard a few hours before driving would be a bad idea, but if you have had just a few tokes on a joint 3 hours earlier you should be fine to drive IMO.

The problem is, i think, i might be wrong, that the road side test failure level is so low that you could fail if you smoked something 3 days previous and are on totally sober as THC shows up in the blood for a good few weeks after smoking/eating it.

TBH with the state of driving standards these days on our roads, especially here in Bristol, i think getting people stoned before getting in the car would show an improved standard between a majority of drivers, it can't really get any worse IMO.

[Cousin Jack]

Don't know anything about current tests, but years ago they used to use hair shaft tests. That would show up up to about 12 months later! Cannabis stuff is persistant.

[The Spin Doctor]

"The Road Traffic Act 1988 makes it an offence to drive while unfit through drink or drugs, and regulations which came into force in 2015 brought in a threshold-based offence of driving with blood concentrations of 2 micrograms of THC per litre, regardless of fitness"

[Nordboy]

The new (well, they're quite a few yrs old now) roadside tests are saliva tests, bit like the Covid tests everyone had to do. That will give you a positive/ negative for Cannabis and Coke. For other drugs you still have the impairment test, like the test you see in the films, finger to the end of the nose, walk in a straight line heel to toes etc.

If positive, into the nick. Obviously with alcohol, you get put on the station breath test machine. Drugs is straight to the urine/ blood test. It's the police's choice unless you have a proveable medical condition why you can't do one of those, so blood is the normal choice. It's an absolute pain to do a urine test.

If you refuse, then it's a straight charge. I've had a few people banned over the years trying it on. I had a car of 4 lads, they crashed and thought they'd be awkward buggers, worded each other up based on the internet. So, I had no idea who was the driver, took them all in as they were all pissed. Then the mistake they made was ALL refusing the breath test, cos 'I wasn't driving'. When they refused, that becomes the offence of refusal, therefore I no longer needed to prove who was the driver. they all went not guilty. They arrived at court looking very smug, thinking case dismissed. Sorry, doesn't matter who the driver was, all found guilty, all banned for 12 months. I will admit to that being one of the days I managed to walk out of court with the smug grin..... Anyways, I've digressed..

Then the sample is off to the lab and like Horse said, there's limits on ALL the drugs. Even prescription drugs are on there, with limits, because that's also an offence to drive impaired with prescribed drugs. So when the results come back, you'll get a list of all the drugs, and the actual amounts in the system.

The issue with drug driving as opposed to drink driving is that the drugs tend to stay in the body and affect you for far far longer than alcohol.