People Against Drink/Drug Driving

By Isaac Teo, August 3, 2022

(We do not want this is Australia! However, it will be an inevitability if we continue to give cannabis a free pass, specifically in the ‘medicinal’ context.)

Cases of drug-impaired driving continued to rise for the fourth consecutive year since the Liberal government legalized marijuana in October 2018, according to police data collated by Statistics Canada.

Released on Aug. 2, the study, titled “Police-Reported Crime Statistics In Canada 2021,” found that there were 7,690 cases of drug-impaired driving violations in 2021 compared to 7,621 in 2020.

In 2019, 6,453 such incidents were reported—a 43 percent increase over 2018, the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, a department at Statistics Canada, said in its 2019 study released last July.

The latest study, first reported on by Blacklock’s Reporter on Aug. 3, also noted that other marijuana crimes increased last year.

“Drug-impaired driving is a major contributor to fatal road crashes, and young people continue to be the largest group of drivers who die in crashes and test positive for drugs,” said the report, titled “Public Opinion Research On Drug-Impaired Driving.”

“Among those who have operated a vehicle while under the influence of cannabis, most said they did not recognize their behaviour as risky, with two in five (39 percent) reporting they did not feel impaired and one in five (23 percent) believing they could (still) drive carefully.”

The report noted 26 percent of cannabis users have “operated a vehicle while under the influence.”

Cases of Drug-Impaired Driving up for Fourth Straight Year: Statistics Canada 

With the effect of cannabis on some of the parameters being studied for the first time in this study, the researchers discovered that cannabis had a detrimental effect on all of the visual parameters they assessed. 

Another study that investigated the effects of smoking cannabis on vision and driving performance also found that the visual effects of cannabis could impact driving performance, jeopardizing driving safety. Overall, it appears that information and awareness initiatives are critical for reducing the prevalence of cannabis-impaired driving.

Source: It's official. Smoking cannabis substantially alters the way you see (interestingengineering.com)

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Driving Under Influence of THC 2021 

Cannabis Legalization and THC in Injured Drivers 2022

Jan. 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Here's more evidence that marijuana may make driving more dangerous: As pot has been legalized in more countries and states, a greater number of people are driving intoxicated by the drug and crashing, researchers report.

THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, has been detected in twice as many injured Canadian drivers since 2018, when cannabis was first legalized. The same effect is being seen in the United States, said lead researcher Dr. Jeffrey Brubacher, an associate professor in the department of emergency medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver

"This is an emerging and extremely important area of research," Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, said in a statement. "One recent study found increased rates of motor vehicle crashes in the six months following medical cannabis authorization in Canada, and another study found relative increased risk of fatal motor vehicle collisions of 15% and a relative increase in associated deaths of 16% in U.S. jurisdictions where cannabis is legal," she noted.

"As more and more states seek to legalize marijuana, it is crucial that we understand the impact of legalization on addiction and a range of other health outcomes, including driving accidents, to determine strategies for implementing legalization while minimizing the potential harms," Volkow added.

 For complete article

(First nation (not jurisdiction) to legalize cannabis use for citizens was Uruguay. This is the tip of the iceberg of issues that liberalization presents)

PMID: 35129240 DOI: 10.1111/add.15840

Abstract

Background and aim: In Uruguay, residents aged 18 and older seeking legal cannabis must register with the government and choose one of three supply mechanisms: self-cultivation, non-profit cannabis clubs, or pharmacies. This is the first paper to measure the association between type of legal cannabis supply mechanism and traffic crashes involving injuries.

Design: Ecological study using ordinary least squares regression to examine how department-level variation in registrations (overall and by type) is associated with traffic crashes involving injuries.

Setting: Uruguay.

Cases: 532 department-quarters.

Measurements: Quarterly cannabis registration counts at the department level and incident-level traffic crash data were obtained from government agencies. The analyses controlled for department-level economic and demographic characteristics and, as a robustness check, we included traffic violations involving alcohol for departments reporting this information. Department-level data on crashes, registrations, and alcohol violations were denominated by the number of residents aged 18 and older.

Findings: From 2013-2019, the average number of registrations at the department-quarter level per 10,000 residents aged 18 and older for self-cultivation, club membership, and pharmacy purchasing were 17.7 (standard deviaiton [sd]=16.8), 3.6 (sd=8.6), and 25.1 (sd=50.4), respectively. In our multivariate regression analyses, we did not find a statistically significant association between the total number of registrations and traffic crashes with injuries (β=-0.007; p=0.398; 95% confidence interval [CI]=-.023, .01). Analyses focused on the specific supply mechanisms found a consistent, positive, and statistically significant association between the number of individuals registered as self-cultivators and the number of traffic crashes with injuries (β=0.194; p=0.008; 95% CI=.058, .329). Associations for other supply mechanisms were inconsistent across the various model specifications.

Conclusions: In Uruguay, the number of people allowed to self-cultivate cannabis is positively associated with traffic crashes involving injuries. Individual-level analyses are needed to assess better the factors underlying this association.

For complete research