Does anyone else constantly smell weed while driving around? Several times per week I find myself behind a car that wreaks so bad of weed that I can clearly smell it driving a few car lengths behind. I have to wonder…if so many people are smoking enough to smell it in another car while moving, exactly how many people on the road are high?
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
#272Some helpful context: The number of Americans age 12 and older who report using any marijuana product at least once in the past year is around 20% (Source https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-use-di... ) if I use one of the highest reported use numbers I can find. Even if you dismiss all of the questions brought up in these comments like the use of mean levels instead of median, not accounting for to…
The number of people who report using it is only a rough proxy for the number of people who are using it, though.
Yes, very rough. Marijuana still being illegal at the federal level, and often illegal at the state level, means it's not always in your best interest to self-report.
For example, in my doctor's questionnaires. "Have you used illegal drugs in the last year?" I'm always going to say no. I don't trust security and privacy enough to say otherwise.
And yes, for HN scrapers, I'll mention this is all hypothetical.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
You're only expected to crash 500 or so times per 100 million miles as the base rate[0]. If you were impaired enough to have 2x or 3x the risk of crashing then it's entirely possible that you wouldn't crash, or that other factors would play a larger role.
[0] https://www.friedmansimon.com/faqs/how-common-are-car-accide...
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are doing this every day for drunk drivers already.
They also frequently arrest people who have not had any alcohol or drugs at all for being "drunk". It happens far too often. Just one example of many: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFuVdlKD00s
Impairment is somewhat orthogonal to drug or alcohol intoxication. It's not safe to drive if you've been awake for 24+ hours, for example, or have some other medical condition (hypoglycemia, whatever) that impairs your ability to drive safely.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have world-leading criminality rates. Given that, the only alternatives are world-leading incarceration, or just letting criminals roam around making law-abiders' lives worse.
There's a lot of different ways to measure crime, making it hard to compare between nations. The people who try anyway, mostly put the USA as fairly middling, nothing special either way.
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Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#276Phones are by far the biggest source of dangerous driving.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
DEAD people
If the population of dead drivers with over the limit THC is 40%, and this dramatically exceeds the population average, that would strongly suggest the THC level IS an indicator of either: 1. Impairment from THC, or 2. Worse than average driving and risk management skills in those who use the drug
It's seat belts. People who die in wrecks are overwhelmingly not wearing seat belts. I would think marijuana users as a group probably have average seat belt usage, but people who don't wear seat belts probably have much higher than average marijuanna usage. Roughy 92% of people wear seat belts. But that 8% of people that don't wear setbelts makes up 50% or more of all fatalities. From my personal experience it seems easy to me to assume that 90% of the people that don't wear seat belts also use marijuanna.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
“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.
I think there is definable a connection between cannabis use and auto accidents. It slows your reaction time and that’s a known factor with accidents. That said, substance use data is notoriously underreported[1] in surveys. So that 20% data point is not very helpful. Also 12-15 year olds are bringing that number down in your data and also can’t drive making it even less useful for comparison.
[1]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089085672...
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a larger discussion in a previous thread on this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45494730 Since then, [0] has been published and I think it's worth at least a skim. Since it's quite recent the introduction summarizes some of the most recent research. The things that jump out at me are: - [0]: Habitual users with baseline concentrations above legal limits perform just as well as habitual users wi…
> the number of drivers in accidents with THC in their blood is going up because the number of people with THC in their blood is going up This. In just the short time since legalization, recreational use in my immediate vicinity (a small Ohio village, one stop light) has decidedly, undeniably increased. I offer only an anecdotal observation, but my evening walks around town are now accompanied by a dank potpourri of…
That's evidence of increased public/open-air consumption, which is to be expected with legalization
Don't need to hide it anymore, especially if the local police don't have much to do otherwise
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
You probably are compared to your baseline self (another comment goes more extensively on this subject) but maybe you have enough driving skills and common sense to minimize the risks somewhat.