Weed and Driving
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https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306466
Objectives. To assess cannabis and alcohol involvement among motor vehicle crash (MVC) fatalities in the United States.
Methods. In this repeated cross-sectional analysis, we used data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System from 2000 to 2018. Fatalities were cannabis-involved if an involved driver tested positive for a cannabinoid and alcohol-involved based on the highest blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of an involved driver. Multinomial mixed-effects logistic regression models assessed cannabis as a risk factor for alcohol by BAC level.
Results. While trends in fatalities involving alcohol have remained stable, the percentage of fatalities involving cannabis and cannabis and alcohol increased from 9.0% in 2000 to 21.5% in 2018, and 4.8% in 2000 to 10.3% in 2018, respectively. In adjusted analyses, fatalities involving cannabis had 1.56 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.48, 1.65), 1.62 (95% CI = 1.52, 1.72), and 1.46 (95% CI = 1.42, 1.50) times the odds of involving BACs of 0.01% to 0.049%, 0.05% to 0.079%, and 0.08% or higher, respectively.
Conclusions. The percentage of fatalities involving cannabis and coinvolving cannabis and alcohol doubled from 2000 to 2018, and cannabis was associated with alcohol coinvolvement. Further research is warranted to understand cannabis- and alcohol-involved MVC fatalities. (Am J Public Health. 2021;111(11):1976–1985. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306466)
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But wait! There's more!
Those numbers, however, are only through 2018. From 2019 to 2022, deaths from drunk-driver car crashes rose a whopping 33 percent — from 10,142 in 2019 to 13,524 in 2022 (the most recent statistics available), according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Deaths from stoned driver car crashes likely increased even more, given that, unlike alcohol use (which hasn’t changed much), pot use has risen greatly over the past few years.
From 2018 to 2022, the percentage of Americans who use marijuana daily rose from 7.8 percent to 11.3 percent, a 45 percent spike, among 19-to-30-year-olds and from 4.3 to 6.5 percent, a 51 percent spike, among 35-to-50-year-olds. If the portion of car crash deaths involving cannabis also rose by between 45 and 51 percent — a reasonable estimate — that would mean that the portion of car crash deaths involving cannabis rose from 21.5 percent in 2018 to somewhere between 31.1 and 32.5 percent in 2022, approaching one-third of all car crash deaths in the U.S.
Boston University’s School of Public Health writes that “little attention has been given to the connection between alcohol and cannabis use.” It notes that the study in which it was involved suggests “that cannabis and alcohol are increasingly being used together when it comes to impaired driving, and that cannabis increases the likelihood of alcohol use in crash deaths.” It adds that “as states have loosened cannabis policies, cannabis and alcohol have increasingly been used together when driving.” In other words, the 33 percent increase in drunk-driving deaths from 2019 to 2022 may have a lot to do with increased pot use.
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Road fatalities in Massachusetts: (Marijuana became legal in 2016). I wonder why there was a dip prior to 2020. Lockdown plus legal pot plus younger people adopting it might have been a bit of a recipe for disaster.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tpm/reporting/state/safety.cfm?state=Massachusetts
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What is the rules for marijuana driving? Are the tests reliable and accurate enough?
I have heard people claim that marijuana stays in the system longer so the effects are gone, but it still shows up. How to determine if it is causing your driving to be a problem?
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Where we used to live in Foxborough, the young lad who lived across the road used to spend a lot of time sitting in a car with a couple of buddies seemingly chatting away so much that windows got all smokey. Occasionally, I got a whiff of something vaguely Turkish in nature. It wasn't coffee. Then his buddies would drive home, at speed.
