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Cannabis and driving? Studies reveal big risks

23 points by PaulHoule

by naruhodo

0 subcomment

It's not unexpected that infrequent users are more impacted by acute use.
The article doesn't quantify accident risk, from what I can see.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), however, actually has quantified the relative change in accident risk. [1]
The table in the linked document (N/A = not available):
```
                Crash Risk   Culpability
    Alcohol (BAC = 0.02) 1.03–1.19 1.36
    Alcohol (BAC = 0.05) 1.38–1.75 2.19
    Alcohol (BAC = 0.08) 2.69–2.92 3.63
    Cannabis 1.11–1.42 1.20–1.42
    Antidepressants 1.35–1.40 N/A
    Antihistamines 1.12 N/A
    Benzodiazepines and Z-hypnotics 1.17–2.30 1.41
    Opiates 1.68–2.29 1.47
```
In Australia, the legal limit for Blood Alcohol Concentration when driving is 0.05. We are subject to roadside drug testing that checks for alcohol, methamphetamine, cannabis and cocaine. But not benzos, opiates or depressants, AFAIK. In almost all Australian states and territories, having a cannabis prescription is not a valid legal defence against loss of licence when a roadside test detects cannabis metabolites. The tests do not indicate impairment, only past use within the last few days. The Australian political class actively resists changing the law to be fair to medicinal cannabis patients.
If the system was really fair, it would perform a field sobriety test to prove impairment. Recognising that cannabis use only increases crash risk by the same amount as a legal BAC would be a good start.
[1] https://www1.racgp.org.au/getattachment/ef4cc327-723b-42c9-b...

by jmux

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> Participants in the occasional and daily groups used their own cannabis at the doses they typically consume.
> “We didn’t tell people what to use because there’s a really big continuum of how people use and how they respond to that dosage,” Brooks-Russell said, explaining that they wanted these studies to reflect how people use cannabis outside of the lab.
Actually a really smart process decision - in past studies I’ve seen they always used a prescribed dose but having the participants choose makes a lot of sense

by hurril

5 subcomments

I don't see how anyone would even want to attempt to drive while baked.

by The_President

1 subcomments

Risks may include:
- Stopping at green lights
- Dropping the doob between the seats
- The Ozium can rolling out of reach
- Driving thru multiple fast food venues in one trip

by erelong

1 subcomments

n=1 but I see tons of distracted driving, like relatedly people still text and talk and drive and... it mostly works out ok
So still probably ideal for people to aim to be perfectly sober and focused, but... we might end up "ok" in a lot of cases even if that ideal isn't achieved

by syeare

1 subcomments

TL;DR Nonsense "study"
A study for real world risks based on a videogame, of all things? Its impossible to directly map the experience of being behind the wheel in real life to a game, and the article doesn't even mention whether it's an actual simulation (like beam.NG), game-like (as in Assetto Corsa), or plain arcade fantasy (GTA, Need for Speed) OBVIOUSLY people are gonna play games in a more fun/different way under the influence They even admit that inhaled usage showed little to no consistency in driving difference Bias disclaimer: I stopped consumption some time back

by maryamshafaqat

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[flagged]

by cindyllm

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[dead]

by MadSkull

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[dead]

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