Thread: Driving and Cannabis - Not so safe after all (queue common sense arguments)

Instead of dredging up the countless topics that have graced (or cursed) this forum, and OTS before it, regarding Driving Under the Influence, Driving While Intoxicated, Alcohol and Cannabis I thought I'd just start a new one (yall can thank me later).

Smoke and Mirrors: Driving While High on Marijuana Doubles One

Booze is behind an estimated 2.1 million car accidents each year in the U.S.—which cause almost 11,000 traffic fatalities annually. But many drug users have claimed that a few puffs of pot before getting behind the wheel are perfectly harmless. A new study, however, shows that drivers who smoke marijuana within a few hours of hitting the road are almost twice as likely as stone-sober motorists to be in a crash that results in serious injury or death.

Whodathunk it?

In addition to the finding that drivers who had recently smoked pot were substantially more likely to be involved in a serious accident, the researchers found that those who had died in these crashes had higher amounts of the drug’s compound tetrahydrocannabinol than those who survived.

DUI is never a good thing...

Still would rather have a stoner as a cab driver over a drunk...

shocking

Here's some interesting comments:

I wonder what ‘doubling your chances’ means in absolute terms. For example, if your chance of being involved in a serious crash is (say) one in a million before smoking, and it doubles to two in a million after smoking, then it hardly appears significant.

They mention use of control-comparison studies. Any idea how you can make control comparisons for vehicle collision reports? Asbridge Et Al. make use of reports where culpability is not addressed – ‘being in a car crash’ doesn’t necessarily implicate the cannabis user as the driver at fault for those reports.

One more point. If people who use mind-altering substances should not be driving, that would eliminate almost everyone on the road, because almost everyone is using caffeine, which enhances read rage, anti-depressants, which can slow reaction time, and a host of other legal drugs which impair mental function.
Why don’t they do some research that compares the number of destructive road rage incidents with high serum levels of caffeine with the number of destructive road rage incidents of people who do not use caffeine? Maybe they’d find that caffeine is as dangerous as pot.

Originally Posted by SmokenScion

Marijuana Research: Scientific American From the same site.

This is why there is so much designer garbage that has overwhelmed the market...

Originally Posted by Toker

Here's some interesting comments:

Interesting comments.

1. I highly doubt that the chances are 1 in a million so doubling the chances would likely be far higher than "tongue in cheek" 2 in a million.
2. Not sure what the control comparisons are. Also - is anyone going to legitimately argue that driving while under the influence is perfectly safe? I doubt that as well.
3. Caffeine, while true a mind altering substance, is very likely the least of the worries in correlation to driving or motor-skill dependent activities. Why? Because the caffeine consuming modern culture, imo, is super saturated with Caffeine. It's present in a host of products and so the overall effect is probably greatly reduced due to tolerance. Additionally, as a stimulant, it very likely, again imo, would have a positive appreciable impact on reaction times. Thus potentially avoiding the "rage" issues that your quote alludes to in the first place (unless the supposition of the commenter is that all drivers are razor-edge rage maniacs just itching to pull the trigger). As to the anti-depressants - I've not ever been on any and hope to never be, but I would think that most of those come complete with a warning (albeit one that is routinely ignored) against operating motor vehicles and/or heavy machinery while on the medication.

As to your comment about the stoned cabbie or the drunk.....I say that neither of those extremes is acceptable.

Originally Posted by SmokenScion

Marijuana Research: Scientific American From the same site.

Which has zero to do with the article in the OP. Because unless you, or the researchers, can show that the brain is capable of being manually induced to produce those neurological compounds on demand and in the same quantity/potency as that of smoked/inhaled cannabis it's a pointless article for this discussion (though would make a good topic in it's own right).