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Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

#211

Post by MAGZine »

nostrebored wrote: post #136
justizin wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are lot's of medications which people should take before driving, like anti-seizure, antipsychotics, heart control, blood sugar control, and so on. anxiety, depression, etc... there's some overlap here, some people use cannabis to prevent/control seizures, to treat anxiety or depression, and don't feel side effects. The experience of the common person who has tried cannabis once or twice and turned away isn't…

Stimulants have been shown to decrease your risk of accidents multiple times. Cannabis on the other hand has been shown to impair you ability to react, pay attention to multiple tasks, your metacognition... There's a huge difference here. If you drive frequently, maybe cannabis isn't a good idea for you to take to manage your anxiety, depression, or seizure control. If there's not a drug out there that helps you that…

> Driving is not a right, driving is not something everyone should be able to do. I think I would be a sub par driver, and so I don't drive. I pay more money to live in the city close to public transit. I don't say "it will probably be ok" and endanger other drivers, and this would be especially true if I actually needed pot to function.

While it is true that driving is not a right, this is an extremely narrow view. Especially in small municipalities (0-80000 people) transit is often poor and/or nonexistent, and downtown/commercial areas rarely have residences built or even nearby. Everyone relies on driving. In fact, the highschool I'm from offered free drivers ed, as a part of highschool.

Everyone has to drive and few people are sub-par drivers.

People drive impaired [alcohol, painkillers, anger, phones, passengers, weather, radio, stressors] all the time. That's not the point. The point is how much do we allow people to drive impaired. In the case of BAC, 0.05-0.08 is a common tolerance. This is not "zero," as people seem to think. Yep. You can have a beer (or two) and still be well within legal limits.

I'm not a libertarian by any means but we have very strict penalties already for people who kill others in vehicle accidents. I want to see INFORMED legislation not "i'm too scared to drive so nobody should ever do it unless they are of a perfectly clear mind and the road conditions are perfect."

Not everyone has the luxury of ordering an uber or hopping on a train for a few minutes to get home.

Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

#212

Post by jeffbarr »

mikestew wrote: post #183
beat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think legalization will cause usage to increase? Seems to me just about anyone who would use marijuana in the first place is already using it. I don't expect an increase in consumption per capita at all.

Anecdata alert: it increased my usage, and that of my wife. From "none", because didn't need the legal hassles even if the risk was practically non-existent in the Seattle area if you had some sense, to "pretty regular use" now that it's legal in WA. By far the biggest reason for the switch was because the hassle of tracking down weed just wasn't worth the hassle. Now the store is on the way home, takes an extra five…

> I used smoke weed back in the day and I kind of enjoyed it.

Based on my observations at one Washington state dispensary, at least half of the customers are in their 60's or 70's. I asked the woman behind the counter about it and she told me that many of them are seeking relief from chronic pain and/or cancer treatments.

Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

#213

Post by breatheoften »

Are there any ways to directly measure impairment rather than using chemical trace detection as a proxy for the affect?

Maybe a driver could take a short impairment test on their cellphone or in car computer prior to starting their drive -- if they pass the test then they would have an argument against impairement should they become subsequently involved in an accident... If they fail the test and drive anyway then there's an even stronger argument that they made an irresponsible decision for which they must take responsibility.

Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

#214

Post by lubesGordi »

kdamken wrote: post #42

Do not read this and think it's okay to drive high. It's not. Do not drive high. Call an uber or something. I worry that people read studies like this and suddenly justify going out and driving while impaired. Driving is an incredibly dangerous activity on its own. Doing it when you're stoned is a stupid and risky move, and comparing it to how much more dangerous drunk driving is doesn't make it less stupid. If you'v…

Did you read the article? What facts are you even basing your claims on?

Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

#215

Post by notahacker »

mcbits wrote: post #182
notahacker wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your comment, you clearly read neither the article nor the study. I mean, the article states "There's plenty of evidence showing that marijuana use impairs key driving skills. If you get really stoned and then get behind the wheel, you're asking for trouble" and the study itself cites plenty of other studies which have found strong positive associations between marijuana use and driving impairments. What it actu…

So, we have "impairs key driving skills" versus "no statistically significant change in the risk of a crash". It sounds a bit like in vitro vs. in vivo results. At the end of the day, I'm more concerned about risk factors that actually lead to accidents on the roads. Why doesn't "key driving skill" impairment from marijuana appear to increase the risk of a crash? My best guess is that stoned drivers are concerned abo…

I suspect drivers under the influence being cautious is a factor.

I suspect majority of drivers testing positive for cannabis were not actually remotely close to being stoned at the time they were driving plays a huge role too (possibly also overzealous demographic controls). That's consistent with the study authors' observations that other studies based on accidents which rely on self-reported cannabis use show it to have a large effect on accident rates, and studies which rely on testing to show it has little or no discernible impact on accident rates. They consider the studies relying on testing to be superior in construction. Based on the well-established fact that cannabis use tends to show up in standard tests days after its main effects have worn off, I beg to differ.

Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

#216

Post by Zigurd »

kdamken wrote: post #42

Do not read this and think it's okay to drive high. It's not. Do not drive high. Call an uber or something. I worry that people read studies like this and suddenly justify going out and driving while impaired. Driving is an incredibly dangerous activity on its own. Doing it when you're stoned is a stupid and risky move, and comparing it to how much more dangerous drunk driving is doesn't make it less stupid. If you'v…

Statements like this one are baseless, unscientific, and fearmongering:

"Do not read this and think it's okay to drive high. It's not. Do not drive high."

MAYBE this is correct. But it is also possible that being stoned is benign compared to allergy medication, sleep apnea symptoms, general fatigue, texting while driving, and a hundred other causes of risk, enough to make it hard to distinguish driving while stoned as an seperable risk factor.

The downside of statements like this is that they perpetuate a fear-driven enforcement model that will cost many people thousands to tens of thousands of dollars for infractions that are not making anyone safer. And there are opportunists ready to enrich themselves on that basis.

Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

#218

Post by gohrt »

georgemcbay wrote: post #119
scarecrowbob wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really mess with cannabis any more, but I think that a lot of folks have strange ideas about how it affects people. If my only experience with the drug were the first couple of times in college where we were taking bong hits, then yeah, I can see why people would be shocked that you could drive in that state. It took a me a couple of years before I discovered that most of the folks (especially the folks in th…

"Pro tip: there is also a difference between having a beer with dinner and chugging vodka shots all night long. :D" True, which points to the fact that it would be useful to have a well-understood BAC-like scale for marijuana usage, especially as the drug becomes more and more legal to use. Clearly there's a difference between having one beer and driving an hour later compared to getting behind the wheel while nearly…

Unless you can easily estimate your BAC yourself, it's not useful.

Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

#219

Post by webXL »

Symmetry wrote: post #41

I remember an article on this in New Scientist back in the 90s that went into a lot more depth. A study showed that while alcohol impaired multiple aspects of driving skill marijuana mostly impaired just time judgement. And stoned drivers tended to overestimate their level of impairment and slow down while drunk drivers tended to underestimate how impaired they were. They actually found that drivers who were moderate…

Right, there's more involved than just the impairment itself. I was just about to ask if this had something to with stoned drivers driving more carefully just to avoid harsher penalties for possession. Data from states where pot is legal would be interesting.

Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show

#220

Post by int_19h »

curiousgeorgio wrote: post #89
rudolf0 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is: They're getting this data by doing drug tests of drivers in fatal car crashes after the crash has occurred. Previously, 8% of those drivers had cannabis detected. Now, 17% have it detected. What evidence is there that the increased cannabis use is causing these crashes, considering you have to control for the fact that more people in general are using cannabis, so in almost any population (drivers in fat…

Ah, I understand what you're saying now. Still, I think it'd be a stretch to assume that none of those fatalities were actually related to the marijuana use. But I agree, it doesn't necessarily imply causation, just a correlation (which as you say, could in part be coincidental).

That's exactly what this particular study is trying to measure - whether there's a causative link. And they didn't find one (subject to the precision of their study, of course). Basically, yes, more people have higher blood levels, but this does not translate to more accidents.
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