Talk-Polywell.org

Posted: **Mon Aug 16, 2010 2:04 am**

The effects of marijuana use on driving performance have been extensively researched over the last 20 years. All major studies show that marijuana consumption has little or no effect on driving ability, and may actually reduce accidents. Here's a summary of the biggest studies into pot use and driving.

A 1983 study by the US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) concluded that the only significant affect of cannabis use was slower driving - arguably a positive effect of driving high.

A comprehensive 1992 NHTSA study revealed that pot is rarely involved in driving accidents, except when combined with alcohol. The study concluded that "the THC-only drivers had an [accident] responsibility rate below that of the drug free drivers." This study was buried for six years and not released until 1998.

A 1993 NHTSA study dosed Dutch drivers with THC and tested them on real Dutch roads. It concluded that THC caused no impairment except for a slight deficiency in the driver's ability to "maintain a steady lateral position on the road." This means that the THC-dosed drivers had a little trouble staying smack in the center of their lanes, but showed no other problems. The study noted that the effects of even high doses of THC were far less than that of alcohol or many prescription drugs. The study concluded that "THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small."

A massive 1998 study by the University of Adelaide and Transport South Australia examined blood samples from drivers involved in 2,500 accidents. It found that drivers with only cannabis in their systems were slightly less likely to cause accidents than those without. Drivers with both marijuana and alcohol did have a high accident responsibility rate. The report concluded, "there was no indication that marijuana by itself was a cause of fatal accidents."
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In Canada, a 1999 University of Toronto meta-analysis of studies into pot and driving showed that drivers who consumed a moderate amount of pot typically refrained from passing cars and drove at a more consistent speed. The analysis also confirmed that marijuana taken alone does not increase a driver's risk of causing an accident.

A major study done by the UK Transport Research Laboratory in 2000 found that drivers under the influence of cannabis were more cautious and less likely to drive dangerously. The study examined the effects of marijuana use on drivers through four weeks of tests on driving simulators. The study was commissioned specifically to show that marijuana was impairing, and the british government was embarrassed with the study's conclusion that "marijuana users drive more safely under the influence of cannabis."

According to the Cannabis and Driving report, a comprehensive literature review published in 2000 by the UK Department of Transportation, "the majority of evidence suggests that cannabis use may result in a lower risk of [accident] culpability."

The Canadian Senate issued a major report into all aspects of marijuana in 2002. Their chapter on Driving under the influence of cannabis concludes that "Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving."

The most recent study into drugs and driving was published in the July 2004 Journal of Accident Analysis and Prevention. Researchers at the Dutch Institute for Road Safety Research analyzed blood tests from those in traffic accidents, and found that even people with blood alcohol between 0.5% and 0.8% (below the legal limit) had a five-fold increase in the risk of serious accident. Drivers above the legal alcohol limit were 15 times more likely to have a collision. Drugs like Valium and Rohypnol produced results similar to alcohol, while cocaine and opiates showed only a small but "not statistically significant" increase in accident risk. As for the marijuana-only users? They showed absolutely no increased risk of accidents at all.

http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4131.html

Interesting that neither meth nor heroin show significant increases in accident rates.

And that pot smoking drivers are safer than drug free drivers. Maybe being stoned on pot should be a requirement for driving. Since the pot smokers are safer drivers.

Since Mr. D and Mr. S are looking to improve safety in society I expect them to come out in favor of lifting the pot ban and imposing an alcohol ban.

For the children.

Heh.

Links to the research at the above url.

Posted: **Mon Aug 16, 2010 6:59 pm**

Should I send a copy of this to the Advertising Standards Agency here in the UK and make a complaint that the recent advertising campaign on the effects of drugs on driving is, at least, disproportionate to anything advertised in regards alcohol [which is very little]?

Posted: **Mon Aug 16, 2010 7:31 pm**

chrismb wrote:Should I send a copy of this to the Advertising Standards Agency here in the UK and make a complaint that the recent advertising campaign on the effects of drugs on driving is, at least, disproportionate to anything advertised in regards alcohol [which is very little]?

It is worth a shot. Unless you are adverse to attracting attention.

Posted: **Mon Aug 16, 2010 8:18 pm**

Or maybe it is just too difficult to pass anyone in a red VW microbus?

Not the same picture as "Vanishing Point."

Never used MJ myself, don't want to. I had roommates who did, and I observed a distinct lowering of ambition. This is consistent with not being in a hurry.

Posted: **Mon Aug 16, 2010 11:38 pm**

It's cause when you are high on pot and driving, you are hyper alert and paranoid about cops, black helicopters, UFO's, etc coming to get you. Pot smokers are also more likely to drive below the speed limit.

I knew a fellow in Seattle who was once stopped while driving high in the middle of the Lake Washington Bridge in the middle of the night. The cops said he was going 5 mph.

Posted: **Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:14 pm**

It's well-established now that marijuana increases risk aversion. For some people, this is a hugely beneficial effect. This is especially true if you're driving impaired.

Of course, you probably shouldn't drive if you're impaired by mj, just as you shouldn't if you're impaired by alcohol, but mj has the advantage of also making you more cautious while alcohol generally does the opposite.

It's sort of an odd drug. Alcohol suppresses nerve firing, cocaine and heroin act as reward-system substitutes, the amphetamines are stimulants, but cannabis is a different duck: it acts on what are labelled "cannabinoid receptors." As it turns out, these receptors tend to make things seem funnier and scarier. Hence the long tradition of getting a little high and watching TV or movies.

Posted: **Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:09 pm**

TallDave wrote:It's sort of an odd drug. Alcohol suppresses nerve firing, cocaine and heroin act as reward-system substitutes, the amphetamines are stimulants, but cannabis is a different duck: it acts on what are labelled "cannabinoid receptors." As it turns out, these receptors tend to make things seem funnier and scarier. Hence the long tradition of getting a little high and watching TV or movies.

This is why hallucinogen users have a > 5,000% higher chance of developing psychosis than anyone else, and the best reason why society should never think it's acceptable behavior. It's not acceptable behavior to willingly become a psychotic, even in a welfare state that will eventually take care of you and make sure you don't bang your head in a padded room.

Cannabis and LSD are the SAME in this regard. Spend an evening talking with psychotic homeless people on some dark urban street, under a bridge or a boardwalk; and you'll know why legalizing cannabis is a BAD IDEA.

And yes, I am speaking from experience. I did all manner of drugs from age 12 to 18 and years later I worked with homeless people. I know what the drug culture is like--how no one you meet is trustworthy in any way, and I know how these "innocent" drugs destroy lives. People who advocate legalizing cannabis either have no idea what the consequences are, or they just don't care.

Posted: **Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:42 pm**

GIThruster wrote:
TallDave wrote:It's sort of an odd drug. Alcohol suppresses nerve firing, cocaine and heroin act as reward-system substitutes, the amphetamines are stimulants, but cannabis is a different duck: it acts on what are labelled "cannabinoid receptors." As it turns out, these receptors tend to make things seem funnier and scarier. Hence the long tradition of getting a little high and watching TV or movies.
This is why hallucinogen users have a > 5,000% higher chance of developing psychosis than anyone else, and the best reason why society should never think it's acceptable behavior. It's not acceptable behavior to willingly become a psychotic, even in a welfare state that will eventually take care of you and make sure you don't bang your head in a padded room.

Cannabis and LSD are the SAME in this regard. Spend an evening talking with psychotic homeless people on some dark urban street, under a bridge or a boardwalk; and you'll know why legalizing cannabis is a BAD IDEA.

And yes, I am speaking from experience. I did all manner of drugs from age 12 to 18 and years later I worked with homeless people. I know what the drug culture is like--how no one you meet is trustworthy in any way, and I know how these "innocent" drugs destroy lives. People who advocate legalizing cannabis either have no idea what the consequences are, or they just don't care.

Actually we know no such thing. What we have are correlation studies. We have no idea if the psychosis predated the drug use. i.e. which is cause and which is effect.

Most studies I'm aware of - and the current hospital protocols - treat drug use as self medication.

Here is a good hint:

Schizophrenia and Tobacco

Now tobacco is an anti-depressant. And what do you know. Marijuana is an anti-depressant.

Now if pot causes mental problems then we are all crazy because the body is FULL of endocannabinoids.

I swear. I used to have these discussions with Clayton Cramer - a more conservative anti-drug guy you will never meet. Now we disagree about what it all means but it was fun because he actually knew the field. Around here for the most part all I see are regurgitations of popular press misapprehensions and government propaganda.

http://claytonecramer.blogspot.com/2010 ... visit.html

And you know what I really liked about Clayton - if I pointed to some bit of evidence he would actually READ it before commenting. Of course my attitude towards him was the same.

Most of what I get around here is "my mind is made up - don't confuse me with facts". How shabby for a science oriented board.

I feel like I'm discussing nuclear reactor theory with guys who have connected some wires, a light bulb, and a battery in third grade and think they have mastered physics thereby.

Now I would love to have a discussion about some of the evidence I have presented (see links in previous comments) but it appears no one who is anti has taken the time to read any of it. Shameful.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck

I write here (and elsewhere) for the next generation. Let them sift the FACTS and come to their own conclusion. I'm confident of my position. I have the FACTS on my side.

So my friend. Pick one of my links. Read it. And get back to me with your objections. I would be glad to discuss the EVIDENCE. Anecdotes prove nothing.

Posted: **Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:56 pm**

Well, we can agree to disagree. I admit I do not have an open mind on this subject. My life's experience is of so MANY people who's lives have been ruined by drugs that I just can't pretend some supposed study holds sway. It doesn't. I know too many pseudo-scientists who've written too many deliberately misrepresentative studies, and used them to bolster the positions they pretend they didn't hold before the study, all to sway people's minds.

Hate to say it, but my mind is not swayed by the "facts" as anyone else sees them. I've seen the facts--drugs ruin lives. It's astonishing to me that anyone could claim differently. Spend a night on the darkest streets of any major city in the world, and you'll find the real and relevant "facts".

But we can certainly agree to disagree.

Mike always has my respect.

Posted: **Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:01 am**

GIThruster wrote:Well, we can agree to disagree. I admit I do not have an open mind on this subject. My life's experience is of so MANY people who's lives have been ruined by drugs that I just can't pretend some supposed study holds sway. It doesn't. I know too many pseudo-scientists who've written too many deliberately misrepresentative studies, and used them to bolster the positions they pretend they didn't hold before the study, all to sway people's minds.

Hate to say it, but my mind is not swayed by the "facts" as anyone else sees them. I've seen the facts--drugs ruin lives. It's astonishing to me that anyone could claim differently. Spend a night on the darkest streets of any major city in the world, and you'll find the real and relevant "facts".

But we can certainly agree to disagree. :-) Mike always has my respect.

What you may actually be seeing is people whose lives who have been ruined by mental illness who take drugs because they give a little relief.

The likelihood of that is high because doctors prescribe similar drugs for those who have mental illness.

But I do like your attitude. At least you admit that you have no researched evidence to go by and prefer anecdotes.

I hope you do not take umbrage at those who prefer to treat your "new physics" the same way.

It is too bad we don't do all science that way. It would make the research a LOT cheaper. Of course engineering would get harder. But thems the breaks.

Posted: **Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:20 am**

MSimon wrote:I hope you do not take umbrage at those who prefer to treat your "new physics" the same way.

Certainly I would so take umbrage. M-E physics entails no "new physics". This is a dispassionate issue that brings to bear no "perverting influences" and is rightly a hard science as opposed to a soft or social science.

Just because I don't believe a bunch of self-interested studies that war against common sense doesn't mean I'm not invested in empiricism. I am, and I don't think opinions about drug use pertain in any way toward our attitudes concerning science and discovery.

And yes, I do know the difference between those who are psychotic and choose to do drugs, and those who do drugs that make them psychotic. Much of this is hard science. For example, true schizophrenics have too many connections between the left and right hemispheres of their brains. This is a morphological issue. It's easy to do a brain scan and know whether a person has true schitzophrenia or a toxicity issue.

Attitudes about this have nothing whatsoever to do with physics, IMHO.

Posted: **Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:38 am**

My dear thruster,

The evidence I have presented is not social science. It is brain chemistry.

So I hope you are not upset with those who ignore your evidence. After all it is a small step from dismissing chemistry and medical experiments to dismissing physics.

I do admit that "what is to be done" is social science but that is only my opinion grounded in EVIDENCE.

If we can start from the same evidence then figuring out what to do is more likely to get the intended results. The reason the results of prohibition are so bad is that the prescription is not evidence based. You know - like prescribing chemotherapy for an ordinary headache. Or prescribing a lobotomy for an ingrown toenail.

Posted: **Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:59 am**

And don't forget your sample is skewed. It would be the same if you only looked at alcoholics (they also tend to be polydrug users) and declared alcohol was totally evil.

The problem is that those who suffer no harm or do well

Drug Testing Lowers High Tech Productivity

are not in your sample. From what we can tell you base your policy on about 5% of the drug using universe. It is as if we based alcohol policy on the problems of alcoholics. We tried that. It failed. In the same way current drug policies are failing.

Kerry Mullis. Carl Sagan. Wm. Halsted. Thomas Edison. And numerous lesser lights were not in your sample.

Posted: **Mon Aug 23, 2010 2:00 am**

Yeah, GI,
I've got a lot of first hand experience as well. A former business partner who was a coke addict wrecked my first business and it took me years to get him into treatment. When he got out, he demanded everyone around him quit drinking, that we were all drunks etc as an excuse to fail. I took him up on it and insisted he go to AA meetings every day with me for six months straight. So I know the treatment side of things as well as the usage side of things.
Alcohol is, by far, the worst drug out there. Second is nicotine for the health destruction (and my grandfathers death) of smoking a flawed and toxic "delivery system" (cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, etc).

41% of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related (17,000 per year). There are approximately 14 million alcoholics in the US at any given time. Approximately 60% of the population consumes alcohol regularly (almost 200 million people).

Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, with a rate of 6.1% (14.6 million current users). In 2004, there were 2.0 million current cocaine users, 467,000 of whom used crack. Hallucinogens were used by 929,000 people, and there were an estimated 166,000 heroin users. All of these estimates are similar to estimates for 2003.

About 22.5 million Americans aged 12 or older in 2004 were classified with past year substance dependence or abuse (9.4% of the population), about the same number as in 2002 and 2003. Of these, 3.4 million were classified with dependence on or abuse of both alcohol and illicit drugs, 3.9 million were dependent on or abused illicit drugs but not alcohol, and 15.2 million were dependent on or abused alcohol but not illicit drugs.

So, who wants to keep claiming alcohol isn't that bad?

As for the wisdom of locking up drug users: if you think that deters them, you are crazy. It is as easy to get drugs on the inside as on the outside. The big advantage of getting them on the inside is you know all the dealers are legit, not cops undercover. The disadvantage is that it is more likely you will get drugs laced with toxic substances. Like, who the hell are YOU gonna complain to, CONVICT??!?!?!
Further, getting drugs on the inside is more likely to contribute to the spread of HIV, through both needle sharing and anal intercourse. So yeah, great way to teach them a lesson eh, with that death sentence of HIV???

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Pot Useres Are Safer Drivers

Pot Useres Are Safer Drivers