We needed to
be told this. I also suspect that a
person who is high retains enough judgment to avoid driving. That has never been true with alcohol. It does mean that we can actually be
optimistic on this front as usage itself comes out of the shadows. Who would have thought this.
In the
meantime, progressive acceptance by the States is continuing at a steady pace,
mostly reflecting the time needed to ramp up and establish infrastructure.
There is
essentially no doubt that marijuana has been legalized in fact if not in law
and is very much on its own recognizance while law makers decide what to do
with what they do have on the books. It
is period of clear measured transition as players set up shop.
The
Surprising Truth About Driving While High
The human body does not process cannabis the
way it processes alcohol.
April 29, 2014 |
The following article first appeared
in Cannabis Now Magazine:
As more and more states adopt medical and recreational marijuana policies, it seems the most feared
outcome of legalization is that with the passage of laws that permit any sort
of marijuana use, more impaired drivers will end up on the roads.
In fact, during the Denver 4/20 celebrations
last weekend, tourists learned just how easy it was to get a ticket for smoking
cannabis in public because
of these concerns. Under Amendment 64, establishments designed for cannabis
consumption (akin to a bar or lounge where alcohol is served) are prohibited.
Although loopholes have allowed some such
clubs to exist (by charging a cover fee but not actually selling cannabis to
guests) it’s hard to find a place to get high in Denver legally as a tourist
unless you just do it on the street, where you risk getting a citation.
The primary concern with opening cannabis
bars and lounges is that people will ingest marijuana on-site and then drive
high.
I am here to tell you that there are already
people “driving high” all over this country and it’s not a big deal.
There are also people speeding and racing,
doing their makeup, eating, texting, talking on the phone, using their laptops
or iPads, fighting with their children, drinking alcohol, popping pills,
smoking meth, ghost riding, falling asleep, shooting guns at road
signs or engaging in some sort of sexual behavior — all while operating a
moving vehicle. These things are a big deal, they distract drivers and put the
lives of the irresponsible driver and all others around them at risk.
Legislation cannot prevent bad behavior, but
it can wrongfully send medical marijuana patients and recreational users all
over the country to jail or prevent them from holding jobs they need to drive
to get to just for exercising the newly-won human right of safe access to
cannabis.
The problem is that the laws surrounding
stoned driving are attempting to compare apples to oranges by assuming
marijuana impairment can be measured or even should be measured the way alcohol
is.
Alcohol is tolerated differently in every
body, but generally we can look at someone’s physical height, weight and body
mass index compared with the amount of drinks a driver has had over time to
accurately determine impairment.
Convenient charts are handed out at DMVs all
over this country so that people understand the law considers them impaired
after a certain number of drinks, and impairment is distinguishable by a
person’s blood alcohol content at the time the peace officer encounters the
driver.
Photo BAC Chart:The science lines up, and
although we do our best to prevent it, people still drive drunk. In fact, drunk
driving is still the leading cause for traffic fatalities in the nation.
In 1957, nearly 53,000 Americans died in a car
accident. By 2012, that number
dropped to less than half that—about 25,000 nationwide. Half of those were
from drunk driving. Not only have traffic accidents been going
down over time (regardless of alcohol’s legality) states which have passed
medical cannabis laws have actually seen a reduction in
traffic fatalities.
The human body does not process cannabis the
way it processes alcohol, nor can a person’s tolerance level to the substance
be measured similarly with accuracy towards actual impairment.
Human bodies all come equipped with an endocannabinoid system — a network of receptors found
throughout the body (brain, organs, connective tissue, glands and immune cells)
that have the explicit purpose of binding with the cannabinoids found in whole-plant cannabis to perform a variety of tasks where they are found.
When patients use medical cannabis, their
ultimate goal is “homeostasis” a stable internal environment despite external
influences, or in other words, patients are trying to consume as much cannabis
as often as they can so they can saturate their endocannabinoid system with all
the cannabinoids found in whole-plant cannabis.
People who use cannabis regularly have
certain levels of cannabinoids present in their bodies even when they don’t
feel the effects of the use any more.
A patient or recreational user who uses
cannabis frequently can tolerate higher levels of cannabinoids without being or
feeling impaired in any way. Persons who have never used cannabis can become
impaired drivers from just one hit.
Some users even say they drive better after using
cannabis, mostly because they
either feel relief from the symptoms of a chronic illness or because they are
more focused. In fact, auto insurance provider 4AutoInsuranceQuote.com says their studies say cannabis users are
better drivers.
There is no magic number or metric that can
be used to adequately determine cannabis impairment and trying to do so without
understanding the poor comparison with alcohol is setting the precedent for
terribly written laws in places where cannabis is legal for medical and/or
recreational use.
Some states, such as Washington, have set
the legal limit of active THC in a driver’s bloodstream at 5 nanograms per
milliliter of blood. Many
activists, industry leaders and medical marijuana patients decried this regulation
doesn’t reflect actual impairment and local news station KIRO TV even tested
the limits with an actual Washington state highway patrol officer and driving
instructor and found that the drivers could consume up to four times that legal
limit without their driving becoming impaired.
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