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Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

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Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#171

Post by lamontcg »

VerifiedReports wrote: post #94
dawnerd wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was tboned by someone that swore their light was green. I had a dedicated turn. Thank goodness for cameras. The trend I’ve noticed this year is turning right from the middle lane cutting off people in the turn lane.

Are they cutting them off, though? If the street you're turning onto has two lanes, it shouldn't be a problem for two cars to turn at once. The car on the inside is required to turn into the nearest lane (according to any state law I know), so why can't the car on its left turn into its own lane?

If the right lane goes straight, you can't turn right from any other lane.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#172

Post by Aurornis »

terminalshort wrote: post #33
tokai wrote: post #13

An issue with having the legal limit at ~2-5ng/ml is that it makes habitual users be over the limit if they have smoked recently or not.[0] Making the prohibition seem unserious to some, not about safety but about punitive control, and in turn making it matter less if you smoke and drive as you are taking the risk of getting into trouble in any case. The impairments of driving under the influence of alcohol have been…

But the truth is that habitual users are always impaired. Source: former habitual user.

I’ve never been a smoker, but I’ve known a lot of friends who went through periods of smoking multiple times per week or even daily for periods of time.

Every single one of them denied impairment during those periods. Often vehemently so, belittling anyone who suggested they might be impaired as having succumbed to propaganda.

Every single one of them remarked that they were sharper, more alert, and had better memory after stopping.

It’s an interesting phenomenon to watch. I think it’s becoming more socially acceptable to acknowledge that marijuana causes impairment even after the obvious effects have subsided, which was a taboo topic in the years when saying anything negative about marijuana would get you attacked as being pro-prohibition or pro-imprisonment of drug users. I even remember one of the big technical forums in the 2010s had a long debate thread where people were claiming that THC made them better drivers and citing YouTube videos and “studies” to back it up. It would be rare to see anyone try to make that claim in today’s environment.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#173

Post by Sparkle-san »

Aurornis wrote: post #140
Sparkle-san wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got any real sources? I've been a daily user for over 10 years and also have a spotless driving record.

> I've been a daily user for over 10 years and also have a spotless driving record. I knew a guy who drove home from bars unquestionably over the legal limit (example: 4-5 drinks in 90 minutes) every single weekend for years without getting caught or getting in accident. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t impaired.

That's not quite the same though. The claim is that because I'm a habitual user, I'm always impaired. Which amounts to over 100k miles of impaired driving over the last decade.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#174

Post by TimorousBestie »

bko wrote: post #123
roughly wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s underappreciated the degree to which police and LEO have started behaving like political actors. NYC cops decided to “strike on the job” when the city started changing its stance in the mid-2010s, and in the Bay the cops responded similarly to Prop 47 by effectively not prosecuting shoplifting and other minor crimes anymore. Similarly, the recall of Pamela Price started almost the moment she took office…

There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted? I don't think people are pushing police to arrest more people. > Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police s…

> There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted?

There’s plenty of desire to increase prosecution rates in American jurisdictions but little desire to raise taxes high enough to pay for lawyers, judges, courthouses, and humane incarceration—let alone assistance for the otherwise innocent families of criminals. The victims of petty crime are usually poor or middle-class and therefore lack the political power to meaningfully change policy.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#175

Post by nobodyandproud »

squigz wrote: post #130
nobodyandproud wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the relevant bit. A blood test detects recent use of THC. Which other, less invasive methods cannot. Like alcohol, impairment is highly individual and so we set a threshold.

It is not a reliable indicator of recent use though, since it can also indicate past use. I agree we need to set a threshold for impairment. I just want that to be measured reliably so that people who had a brownie last weekend aren't getting in trouble.

Driving isn’t a right. No matter how steeped the US is in car culture, it’s important not to lose sight of this.

Now blood tests show a 12-24 hour window of usage. Much tighter than the 2 to 30 days of other tests. In terms of window of time, that’s essentially good-enough.

Of course anyone who consumes cannabis has a strong desire for a tighter and more accurate test, but you’re really fighting against growing masses of irresponsible users.

If the problem is truly wide-spread like alcohol was (and still is), it’s just a matter of time before states or feds push for a good-enough (for the rest of us) solution.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#176

Post by Aurornis »

marcinpieczka wrote: post #103
tokai wrote: post #13

An issue with having the legal limit at ~2-5ng/ml is that it makes habitual users be over the limit if they have smoked recently or not.[0] Making the prohibition seem unserious to some, not about safety but about punitive control, and in turn making it matter less if you smoke and drive as you are taking the risk of getting into trouble in any case. The impairments of driving under the influence of alcohol have been…

That works the same with alcohol - heavy alcoholic would probably need to be over the limit to feel ok and sober.

An important point is that drug users (alcohol included) lose their ability to judge their own impairment after a lot of habitual use.

They can even develop an ability to appear sober to casual observers while being impaired.

Feeling sober is not a reliable indicator of being sober. It’s referred to as delusions of sobriety.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#178

Post by eastbound »

VerifiedReports wrote: post #81
epistasis wrote: post #7

Based on the headline, I was guessing it was any amount of positivity, and may be close to the population level, but it's actually impairment levels of THC: > In a review of 246 deceased drivers, 41.9% tested positive for active THC in their blood, with an average level of 30.7 ng/mL — far exceeding most state impairment limits. Since COVID in CA, it feels like driving has become far more dangerous with much more law…

The most galling and pervasive offense, though, is TEXTING. The rampant texting while driving is killing pedestrians (and other drivers), leading to oft-cited statistics about the failure of "Vision Zero" and the increase in pedestrian deaths. Not to mention the millions of hours stolen from us all by people BLOCKING TRAFFIC while texting. We should not tolerate the ignorant and ineffectual response from lawmakers on…

Yeah. Well on one side, sharing location on Whatsapp has reduced by 90% the need to text while driving.

But we still need to address the rest. Radio is chokefull of ads and the usual radio content is often insufficient to overcome my loneliness, so I’m not gonna say it’s ok, but I listen to Youtube videos while driving. You can sanction me. But let’s make the radio less boring for the sake of safety.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#179

Post by Aurornis »

thrill wrote: post #117
Someone wrote: post #87

> In a review of 246 deceased drivers, 41.9% tested positive for active THC in their blood, with an average level of 30.7 ng/mL — far exceeding most state impairment limits. That could mean they all had levels far exceeding most state impairment limits, but it also could mean most of them had trace levels, while a few had levels way above 30.7 ng/mL. So, it says fairly little. Also (FTA) “Researchers analyzed coroner…

“Finally, no mention is made on the levels of THC in the general population of those driving cars.” How do you propose gathering that particular data?

One helpful data point is that only about 20% of people over age 12 report any THC use at all in the prior year. Some surveys have even lower numbers, around 1 in 8, but let’s take the highest number for the sake of this comparison.

So the median THC level is 0%.

Having 40% of people register high enough levels of THC to pass an impairment threshold is a remarkably high number no matter how you look at it.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#180

Post by throaway123123 »

porridgeraisin wrote: post #135
bko wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted? I don't think people are pushing police to arrest more people. > Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police s…

Yeah, I always wonder why we can't have an "n strikes and you get the electric chair" type of law, where n can be decided. Clearly at that point that person is better off not alive.

Yeah I definitely want the person who costs Wal-mart a couple thousand bucks to face execution. great idea.
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