As if drunk driving and talking on cellphones weren't enough

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Many of the accidents that occur are due to drunk drivers and drivers talking or texting on cell phones. Now you can add a new hazard to drivers. The danger posed by drivers who are high smoking marijuana.

As a society, we have done a good job stigmatizing the completely unacceptable behavior of driving under the influence of alcohol. But because marijuana has been destigmatized, people are driving while high.

When I was a kid, there were massive public health campaigns against smoking, drugs, and drunk driving. I specifically remember seeing a poster in my elementary school depicting some ugly dude smoking with the sarcastic caption, "Smoking is very glamorous."

Drugs got the same treatment. A particularly memorable TV commercial (perhaps because it was so badly acted and overly dramatized) depicted a father demanding to know from his son, "Who taught you how to do this stuff?" In an epic turn of events, the son shouts back, "You, alright? I learned it by watching you!"

Likewise, drunk driving was targeted with the motto, "Friends don't let friends drive drunk."

Each of these campaigns met with varying degrees of success. Today, the consensus seems to be that the "war on drugs" was a major failure. However, the public health campaigns (in combination with other things, such as new laws) against smoking cigarettes and driving while intoxicated seemed to have worked. For instance, HHS reports that in 1976, nearly 30% of 12th graders reported smoking daily. In 2018, the prevalence was down to 3.6%. Similarly, drunk driving fatalities are way down since the 1980's.

Now, the CDC reports data that we certainly should consider troubling: 1 in 8 people aged 21-25 have reported driving while high on marijuana within the past year.

Overall, 4.7% of Americans aged 16+ admitted to driving while high on marijuana in the past year. By comparison, a 2012 study by the CDC found that 1.8% of Americans admitted to driving drunk in the previous 30 days. (Obviously, those figures aren't entirely comparable, but we analyze the data we've got.)

How is that drunk driving is stigmatized but driving while high is not? It's probably because we have destigmatized marijuana in general. Not to pick on anyone in particular, but our society's attitude toward the drug was summed up by President Barack Obama when he said, "I don't think (marijuana) is more dangerous than alcohol."

Most people seem to think that pot isn't a big deal. As a result, it must not be a big deal to drive after puffing the magic dragon.

But it is, especially since marijuana is stronger now than it was 20 years ago. Public health groups would be wise to launch a national campaign about the dangers of marijuana. It's bad for your lungs, has psychological effects, and absolutely should never be used while driving.

1 In 8 People, Aged 21-25, Admit Driving While On Marijuana. We Need A Public Health Campaign Against It.

When driving be safe, be vigilant and be at the top of your game. It's a strange world out there.

Driving while intoxicated by marijuana is precisely the same thing as driving while intoxicated by alcohol in New York State. Both carry identical penalties.

There tends to be more leniency, in practice, when a person is intoxicated by marijuana than when a person is intoxicated by alcohol.

I'm surprised someone can actually drive while high. I'd expect someone high behind the wheel to be stopped in the middle of the road causing a traffic jam behind em.

It is amazing how there is a all our war against smoking tobacco but the same people want to legalize smoking marijuana neither one of them is my drug of choice.

Tobacco causes more harm than marijuana---that's why.

It's weird that tobacco is legal, while marijuana is still illegal in many places.

I'm not a marijuana smoker/tobacco smoker, can't stand the smell of both, and just don't see the use in both.

I'm more concerned about the drunk people driving huge SUVs on an iPhone with earbuds than someone who may have smoked a bowl in the past 24 hours. People who use MJ in my state are nearly all completely normal drivers.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Shee-oot! Here in Californica, we been puttin' up with stoners on the road since before the Auto Club was founded!

I wonder if I can even remember how to drive around people who aren't baked.

Pot-related accidents have been in the news the past few years as nine states and the District of Columbia began to legalize the use of recreational cannabis Those states are: Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

What constitutes a ”marijuana-related” accident is still wrapped up in controversy, as law enforcement in cannabis-friendly states try to get their arms around the problem. For example, in 2016, four years after Colorado became one of the first two states to legalize recreational pot, then Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson said “marijuana-related” traffic deaths, hospital visits and school suspensions in the Rocky Mountain state have “not significantly” increased since the state legalized the drug.

But that claim was immediately debunked by a number of official sources which all showed substantial increases in those problems since pot became legal. The problem was and remains this: the limitations of the data make it impossible to know for sure how many of the documented incidents were directly caused by marijuana use. As ProCon.org reported, “unlike alcohol, for example, testing positive for marijuana doesn’t necessarily mean a person is under the influence of the drug at the time of the traffic accident.”

CHP’s [California Highway Patrol] Golden Gate District, which includes the nine-county [San Francisco] Bay Area, if the trend since 2017 continues, 2018 could see a 70-percent rise in pot DUI arrests. Nacke on Wednesday released these statistics for the local region in 2017:

DUI arrests solely for cannabis: 197
DUI arrests involving cannabis and alcohol: 183
Traffic collision with property damage and a cannabis-only DUI arrest: 22
Traffic collisions with an injury and a cannabis-only DUI arrest: 7
Traffic collisions with a death and a cannabis-only DUI arrest: zero
When there’s alcohol as well as cannabis, injury collisions jump to 24 and fatal collisions for 2017 stood at 7

In Colorado in 2017:
The number of drivers involved in fatal crashes in Colorado who tested positive for marijuana has risen sharply each year since 2013, more than doubling in that time, federal and state data show. A Denver Post analysis of the data and coroner reports provided what that paper called the “most comprehensive look yet into whether roads in the state have become more dangerous since the drug’s legalization.”

The Post reported that “increasingly potent levels of marijuana were found in positive-testing drivers who died in crashes in Front Range counties, according to coroner data since 2013. Nearly a dozen in 2016 had levels five times the amount allowed by law, and one was at 22 times the limit. Levels were not as elevated in earlier years.”

Source: Bay Area’s deadly pot-related crash added to list of tragedies in other cannabis-friendly states

I for one smoke weed & I'm probably a safer driver than you; no offense but I paid up for a Volvo, which is probably safer than your car & unlike most drivers I maintain it very well. It's also a manual gearbox, which doesn't really let me loose focus, unlike a Suburban driver on an iPhone. I ALSO PAID UP FOR BLUETOOTH SO I ACTUALLY USE BOTH HANDS.

If you ask me, the greatest danger is driving tired. Depressants can exacerbate this but caffeine can prevent most of it.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos