Reefer Madness: Driving High Doubles Likelihood of Fatal Crash

ADDITIONAL DATA:

* Relative risk of vehicle collision whilst under the 'acute' influence of cannabis is 1.92 whilst the relative risk of a similar vehicle accident with a blood alcohol content of 0.8 g/100 mL (the legal limit in many places) is 2.69.

* A 2002 review of seven separate studies involving 7,934 drivers reported, "Crash culpability studies have failed to demonstrate that drivers with cannabinoids in the blood are significantly more likely than drug-free drivers to be culpable in road crashes."

REFERENCE: G. Chesher and M. Longo. 2002. Cannabis and alcohol in motor vehicle accidents.

* A driver with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.10 or greater is seven times more likely to be involved in a fatal motor vehicle crash than is a driver who has not consumed alcoholic beverages, and a driver with an alcohol concentration of 0.15 or greater is about 25 times more likely.

* In a 60 km/h zone the risk of involvement in a vehicle accident with casualties increases exponentially (doubles) with each 5 km/h increase in traveling speed.

* Talking on a Cell phone while driving Increases accident risk by a factor of 4.

* Texting while driving Increases accident risk by a factor of 23.

* Eating and drinking is a factor in more accidents than DUI, cell phone use or texting while driving.

* The smokers of cigarettes - even if they do not smoke while driving - have an increased accident risk of 1.5

* Smoking cigarettes while driving Increases accident risk by a factor of 2.

* Alcohol-related accidents are so prevalent, an estimated 40 percent of all persons in the United States will be involved in a traffic mishap blamed on alcohol at some point in their lives.

*** It is important to note that once marijuana is 'Legalized and Regulated', it will still be an offense to drive while impaired - DUI laws already apply to marijuana just like they do alcohol. The fact that being under the influence of a substance makes you a worse driver should have no bearing on its legality in general - otherwise we would be forced to hand the market in alcohol back to machine-gun tooting bootleggers.

malcolm kyle of DE 1:25PM February 10, 2012

The often cited statistic that 6-8% of drivers in motor accidents test positive for marijuana is a case-book example of mistaken causality. A positive test merely indicates that the driver has used marijuana sometime in the past 90 days. Since roughly 7% of the population uses marijuana on a monthly basis, the 6-8% statistic, far from proving anything about the effects of marijuana, simply affirms what should be expected.

Here is a graph which indicates that the presence of certain amounts of cannabis in your body actually appears to REDUCE the risk of being involved in an accident:

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/2739/picture9iqg.png

Reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17916224

* Fact: When combined 2002 to 2005 data are compared with combined 2006 to 2009 data, the United States as a whole experienced a statistically significant reduction in the rate of past year drugged driving (from 4.8 to 4.3 percent), as did seven States: Alaska, California, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Four of these seven States have legalized medicinal marijuana, Alaska, Hawaii, Michigan and California.

http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k10/205/DruggedDriving.htm

* Fact: California led the US to a nationwide, statistically significant reduction in the incidence of "drugged" driving during a time period when the number of patients claiming the protection of the California Compassionate Use Act and SB-420 increased by at least a factor of 10.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2011/may/31/million_medical_marijuana_patien

* Fact: The Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Hartford Hospital in Connecticut and the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine document states that MARIJUANA DOES NOT CAUSE DANGEROUS DRIVING: http://peaceandloveism.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4692

Google "MARIJUANA DRIVING STUDY". You'll see two common findings:

1. Drivers under the influence of marijuana are VERY SLIGHTLY impaired.

2. Unlike those under the influence of alcohol, marijuana consumers are aware they are VERY SLIGHTLY impaired and they CONSISTENTLY ADEQUATELY COMPENSATE by slowing down and being a little more cautious. That doesn’t mean they get in the fast lane on the interstate and drive 15 miles per hour. Marijuana makes you cautious, not crazy. - Those Cheech and Chong movies were comedies, NOT documentaries!

malcolm kyle of DE 1:20PM February 10, 2012

Let me put some perspective on this. The probability of dying in a car accident on any given year is approximately 0.00013%. Now, that means on any given day your statistical chance of dying on any given day is:

0.000133%/365 days = 3.64 * 10^-7 % = 0.000000364%.

Now, if driving under the influence of marijuana doubles your risk, this number is multiplied by two. So you actual risk of dying if you are stoned, is 0.000000728%. You shouldn't be driving high though. This does not justify it, the news article does not give any perspective, and most people do not understand statistics, so this gives a false impression of the actual risk involved.

Brian of IA 11:08AM February 10, 2012

Wait, so let me get this straight- if someone drives while under the impairment of a drug they might be more likely to crash their vehicle? Really? I wonder how much that study cost.

danstermeister of FL 6:28AM February 10, 2012