Um, he said in CA, you said in US.
Are you actually talking about the same thing, or changing the dataset?
It seems relevant -if- the goalposts got moved.
Yep, Iâm a fan of The Checkout, and thanks to it, know that Australian consumer laws would probably frown on this.
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This argument drives me nuts. Sure, some people might start spewing idiocy they think is wisdom when stoned but not everyone does. I program MUCH better stoned - it gives me the patience to work on something so abstract that you effectively get no satisfaction until everything works. When sober I just say âfuck itâ and move on. If it really made people as ineffectual as is claimed, no website I ever made would work.
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Sorry⌠I shouldâve specified that I meant California.
@catgrin The Checkout and the other stuff done by some of those guys | The Hamster Decides (2013 federal election) and The Chaserâs War on Everything (making fun of war on terror and pollies) is pretty damn funny.
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If society was actually serious about reducing road trauma, there are several far more effective ways to go about it than testing drivers for intoxicants.
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Make it easier to not drive in the first place. See the motoring lobbyâs effect on public amenity over the last century.
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Stop handing out driverâs licenses on the back of cereal packets. Every time Iâm in the car, I see folks on the road who have no business there, at least until they get a fucking clue. A good place to start would be heavily scrutinising those who buy Camrys (new, not second-hand); most of whom seem to be the Volvo drivers of yesteryear. No interest in cars or driving, they seem to consider cars as whitegoods, and apparently figure that if theyâre not breaking the speed limit then theyâre doing everything right.
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Driver education that goes further than a hysterical one-eyed emphasis on speeding and drink-driving. An appreciation for other road users and the dynamics of traffic flow would go a hell of a long wayâŚuse your damn indicators and keep left (or right, depending) unless overtaking, dammit.
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More resources (even some?) deployed to assist recent immigrants with getting up to speed with the dominant driving culture, instead of letting them drag it down.
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Some sense employed in intersection design - less traffic lights, more roundabouts, less extraneous signage, more lines on the road, etc.
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Iâm not sure you understand the mechanics of THC.
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Why does most everyone jump to the automatic, knee-jerk, and FALSE assumption that cannabis impairs drivers much the same as does alcohol? Why let uninformed opinions be the basis of new laws? It took me very little time to do a search, and find actual scientific studies which indicate just how incorrect such an assumption is. Examples follow.
Studies Show Marijuana Consumption Not Associated With Dangerous Driving, May Lead to Safer Drivers
Anyone who consumes cannabis on a regular basis knows that it doesnât make you a dangerous driver. Many people find that it makes them a safer, more focused driver; one thatâs more aware of their surroundings and the dangers associated with controlling tons of gasoline-filled metal. Not only has this been an anecdotal truth for as long as cars and cannabis have been paired, science has also been clear that consuming marijuana doesnât make you a dangerous driver, and may make some people safer drivers. More research is needed, but itâs hard to deny that of the research we have, marijuana hasnât been found to increase a personâs risk of an accident. To back this claim up, hereâs a list of studies and research conducted on this very topic, some of which were funded by national governments in hopes of different results.
Marijuana and Driving: A Review of the Scientific Evidence
âMarijuana has a measurable yet relatively mild effect on psychomotor skills, yet it does not appear to play a significant role in vehicle crashes, particularly when compared to alcohol. Below is a summary of some of the existing data.â
The incidence and role of drugs in fatally injured drivers
âThere was no indication that cannabis by itself was a cause of fatal crashes.â
REFERENCE: Washington, DC: US Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
Report No. DOT HS 808 065, K. Terhune. 1992.
Marijuanaâs effects on actual driving performance
âEvidence from the present and previous studies strongly suggests that alcohol encourages risky driving whereas THC encourages greater caution. ⌠Drivers under the influence of marijuana retain insight in their performance and will compensate when they can, for example, by slowing down or increasing effort. As a consequence, THCâs adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small.â
REFERENCE: University of Adelaide study, 1995
Role of cannabis in motor vehicle crashes
"There is no evidence that consumption of cannabis alone increases the risk of culpability for traffic crash fatalities or injuries for which hospitalization occurs, and may reduce those risks⌠The more cautious behavior of subjects who have received marijuana decreases the impact of the drug on performance, whereas the opposite holds true for alcohol.â
REFERENCE: Marijuana: On-Road and Driving-Simulator Studies; Epidemiologic Reviews 21: 222-232, A. Smiley. 1999.
âBoth simulation and road trials generally find that driving behaviour shortly after consumption of larger doses of cannabis results in (i) a more cautious driving style; (ii) increased variability in lane position (and headway); and (iii) longer decision times. Whereas these results indicate a âchangeâ from normal conditions, they do not necessarily reflect âimpairmentâ in terms of performance effectiveness since few studies report increased accident risk.â Â
REFERENCE: UK Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (Road Safety Division). 2000.
Cannabis And Cannabinoids - Pharmacology, Toxicology And Therapy
âAt the present time, the evidence to suggest an involvement of cannabis in road crashes is scientifically unprovenâ.
REFERENCE: G. Chesher and M. Longo. 2002.
Cannabis: Our position for a Canadian Public Policy
âCannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving. Cannabis leads to a more cautious style of driving. However it has a negative impact on decision time and trajectory. This in itself does not mean that drivers under the influence of cannabis represent a traffic safety riskâ
REFERENCE: Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs. 2002.
âThe evidence to suggest an involvement of cannabis in road crashes is scientifically unproven.â
REFERENCE:Â Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutic Potential, 2002
Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutic Potential, edited by Franjo Grotenhermen, MD and Ethan Russo, MD (Haworth Press 2002).
The Prevalence of Drug Use in Drivers, and Characteristics of the Drug-Positive Group
âThere was a clear relationship between alcohol and culpability. In contrast, there was no significant increase in culpability for cannabinoids alone.â
REFERENCE: Accident Analysis and Prevention 32(5): 613-622. Longo, MC; Hunter, CE; Lokan, RJ; White, JM; and White, MA. (2000a).
The Effect Of Cannabis Compared With Alcohol On Driving
âAlthough cognitive studies suggest that cannabis use may lead to unsafe driving, experimental studies have suggested that it can have the opposite effect.â U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2009
Why Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Traffic Deaths
âNo differences were found during the baseline driving segment (and the) collision avoidance scenarios,â
REFERENCE: Research published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2010
Top 10 Reasons Marijuana Users Are Safer Drivers
â20 years of study has concluded that marijuana smokers may actually have fewer accidents than other drivers.â
http://www.4autoinsurancequote.com/uncategorized/reasons-why-marijuana-users-are-safe-drivers/
Risk of severe driver injury by driving with psychoactive substances
âThe study found that those with a blood alcohol level of 0.12% were over 30 times more likely to get into a serious accident than someone whoâs consumed any amount of cannabis. ⌠The least risky drug seemed to be cannabis and benzodiazepines and Z-drugs.â
REFERENCE: Accident Analysis & Prevention; Volume 59, October 2013, Pages 346â356
Cannabis: Summary Report
âCannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving.â
REFERENCE: Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs
Acute cannabis consumption and motor vehicle collision risk
âThere is no evidence that consumption of cannabis alone increases the risk of culpability for traffic crash fatalities or injuries for which hospitalization occurs, and may reduce those risks.â
REFERENCE: British Medical Journal, 1999; M. Bates and T. Blakely
Marijuana-DUI Case Tossed by Arizona Supreme Court in Metabolite Ruling
âBecause the legislature intended to prevent impaired driving, we hold that the âmetaboliteâ reference in [the law] is limited to any of a proscribed substanceâs metabolites that are capable of causing impairment . . . Drivers cannot be convicted of the . . . offense based merely on the presence of a non-impairing metabolite that may reflect the prior usage of marijuana.â
âStick that in your pipe and smoke it!â
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Nope, this article was about Colorado, so I am generalizing because the companies were in Colorado, but the same is true of anything bought in California. Itâs because cannabis is a controlled substance that they arenât always properly labelled. Basic requirements may exist in a state, but theyâre rarely enforced - thatâs because itâs up the dispensaries, the sellers, to get the testing done.
Itâs OK Teapot - you wrote California. This true nationally, wherever marijuana products may be sold.
Correct. And some do. So to say that ANY product you get IS unreliable IS an overstatement.
It is possible, and it is part of the future.
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When you try to say something and you burst out laughing instead, youâve had juuuuuuuust the right amount.
When your eyes decouple and you see double, then youâve had too much.
When you try to stand up and your knees buckle and you have to sit back down again, youâve had too much.
When you get so tired that all you want to do is take a nap, thatâs your bodyâs natural cutoff switch for how much cannabis you can smoke during that session.
Itâs pretty harmless, except in rare situations bad stuff can make you reallllly paranoid.
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Acer . . . Currently, in the U.S., there is no standardized testing in any state. Teapot wrote about âregulated dosesâ which currently do not exist, and plenty of testing (in various states) has already shown that producers arenât producing standardized product. Itâs not a problem that exists only in CO.
You may want to go back and reread how I wrote what I wrote to you:
When I said, âthe same is true of anything bought in California,â I was referring to the fact that everything in the U.S. falls under the same law - which isnât regulating.
I never wrote that you wonât ever get a product that matches the label. I wrote that under current law, you have absolutely no guarantee of it.
Huge caveat:
If someone has any booze in their system, a small amount of weed consumed afterwards will multiply the effect of the booze, so that a legal BAC could still result in significant impairment.
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But they SHOULD be called on-purposes. People tailgate, they swerve and veer and run red lights and then when something finally happens they have the nerve to call it an âaccident.â
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Wait, youâre forgetting that something like 1/3 of that tailgating and swerving is caused by inconsiderate idiots doing 10, 15 or even 20km/h less (not unusual in my town in 80km/h zones) than the posted limit in the fast lane, right next to another doofus doing exactly the same speed. If these turkeys would get to the outside where they belong, things would run a hell of a lot smoother. Iâm seriously considering printing out KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING, FFS in mirrored writing to stick along the top of my windscreen.
Some of us are trying to get somewhere, and these days itâs like every day is bloody Sunday.
To rub it in, half of these bozos are piloting bloody 2.5tonne tanks you canât see past. There should be a special license required to drive these fucking roadblock battering-rams.
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I dunno, GenPop Dunning-Krueger + stoned + 1d8 impairment bonus for âsafer than alcoholâ arrogance factor = ?
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Having worked with a lot of clients who appear to essentially be self-medicating some level of ADHD, I am sure thatâs the case.
What Iâm not sure of is whether performance in one area (executive functioning, analytic reasoning, hyperfocus, etc.) translates into performance in another area (risk evaluation, gross motor skills, spacial perception, etc.) as well as one might like to think.
Well, I bothered to follow one of @Krymsunâs links: The very first hotlink. At that location, I chose the very first quoted study:
â20 years of study has concluded that marijuana smokers may actually have fewer accidents than other drivers.â â 4AutoInsuranceQuote.com; Reasons why marijuana users are safe drivers, 2012
I followed it, and then I followed that link to the Natâl Highway Transportation Safety Administration (by their link), and ran a search for a study on driving under the influence of cannabis. I found this report first.
It says:
The literature indicates that chemical tests of drivers in crashes were performed most often for narcotics, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, cocaine, amphetamines, and cannabis. The range and means of the percentage of fatally-injured drivers who were positive for these drugs in the North American studies we reviewed are shown above in Figure 5-1. Cannabis had the highest percentages, ranging from 7% to 37% with a mean of 14%. The mean percentages of each of the other five drugs amounted to about 5% or less.
In fact, except in one foreign case, where there are very few studies on cannabis and lots of studies on other drugs, cannabis seemed to be the riskier drug over and over. Itâs only in comparison to alcohol that cannabis is a safer bet. This wasnât a scare publication sent out to high schools, this was an internal publication on impaired driving. So, for now, Iâm going to say, that Iâm satisfied real risk exists - as it does with any form of impairment.
Focusing on one task isnât really the problem with being stoned. It may actually help with that, and Iâm not disagreeing with the people who propose they function better that way. The problem is that driving requires a different skill set, and overly focusing on one thing isnât a good thing while driving. You need to be able to react to the unexpected.
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