Posted on 07/04/2011 9:29:45 AM PDT by Signalman
Deadly repercussions have continued to accompany growing medical marijuana use in California. The Los Angeles Times reports on statistics showing the surging number of car accidents involving high drivers over the last decade, which local law enforcement attribute to the growing number of medical marijuana users:
“The most recent assessment by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, based on random roadside checks, found that 16.3% of all drivers nationwide at night were on various legal and illegal impairing drugs, half them high on marijuana.
In California alone, nearly 1,000 deaths and injuries each year are blamed directly on drugged drivers, according to CHP data, and law enforcement puts much of the blame on the rapid growth of medical marijuana use in the last decade. Fatalities in crashes where drugs were the primary cause and alcohol was not involved jumped 55% over the 10 years ending in 2009.”
While President Obama has gone from a hands-off approach to now pushing federal prosecution of anyone in the business of growing or supplying marijuana for medical patients, the medical marijuana movement continues to pick speed as now one third of all states allow such sales. The growing legality of medical marijuana seems mind-boggling considering most states don’t even have a formal standard on the amount of the drug drivers should, if at all, be allowed to have in their blood.
“While 13 states have adopted zero-tolerance laws, 35 states including California have no formal standard, and instead rely on the judgment of police to determine impairment.
Even the most cautious approach of zero tolerance is fraught with complex medical issues about whether residual low levels of marijuana can impair a driver days after the drug is smoked. Marijuana advocates say some state and federal officials are trying to make it impossible for individuals to use marijuana and drive legally for days or weeks afterward.”
The call for a standardized system to judge impairment is debated by national leaders in law enforcement, as some feel the current system works well to identify impaired drivers, and any future legal limit or medical test would not bring about major change. However federal officials and local prosecutors argue that the lack of a standard makes convictions harder to obtain.
“In October, a San Diego jury acquitted Terry Barraclough, a 60-year-old technical writer and medical marijuana user, on manslaughter charges in a fatal crash that occurred shortly after he had smoked marijuana.
A blood test showed he had high levels of active marijuana ingredients in his blood, but the jury heard conflicting expert testimony from toxicologists about the possible effects.
Martin Doyle, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted Barraclough, said the acquittal showed that the lack of a formal legal limit on marijuana intoxication makes such prosecutions tough.”
Over 500,000 Americans currently use legal medical marijuana. Do you want to share the road with any of them?
BS
This is suspect, I have read studies that say pot makes drivers a little more less likely to wreck and they keep saying “drugs” as in more than just pot. By the standard applied here you are high for approximately one month from one joint, not true. Every pot smoking driver (of age) was driving high before med pot. I’m not a champion of pot but I am disgusted with the misinformation and flat out lies that seem to be in the discussion about it.The only things legalization has done is prevent people from being introduced to harder drugs from the same dealer and cut back on prison population. I am amazed at the “control” some conservatives want over the lives of others on this subject and it proves something to me, they to would sell out freedom for their cause. I’m sure I’ll get some nice posts to further prove that point.
Yep. The closest you get to a "high" is the incredible flood of relief you get when you realize that the group of little men who were trying to pry your knee cap off with red-hot screwdrivers have decided to join a union and become slackers.
Still your reflexes are slowed down to the point that driving is a really bad idea. On the road you have seconds to make choices, if you spend half of your allotted seconds realizing that you are in danger you are going to get in a crash. Stay home. Take a cab. Call a friend. It ain't worth it. And frankly you have no right to put other people in danger.
Apparently it alters one’s perceptions which is dangerous at 80 mph. Furthemore, it is addictive enough to produce a fanatic desire to legalize it in order to insure ready trouble free access. Look at the savage nature leveled by the users against those who condemn its use. Its use does something to the brain.
Probably not the whole story. Before medical marijuana had been approved anywhere, but marijuana was widely consumed, it was shown to almost never caused traffic accidents, *unless* it was in combination with alcohol, or to a much lesser extent, other drugs, or if the driver was involved in criminal evasion of the police.
The reason for this was widely understood to be based on the psychological effects of marijuana. Drivers generally drive *below* the speed limit, and are very cautious and careful about making maneuvers while driving. In short, they stay in the right lane and drive like grandmothers.
Some argument can be made that driving several miles below the speed limit can in its own right create a hazardous situation, if other drivers are, as a group, exceeding the speed limit by at least 10mph or more, and thus are also making sharp and inherently dangerous maneuvers with their vehicles. But this is a rationalization. A driver obeying the speed limit cannot control others who are not, yet he is not breaking the law, so should not be held accountable.
Even when someone is very inebriated with marijuana, the effect continues, until their vehicle is just creeping along, and they often pull over to take a nap.
So the preponderance of evidence is that there are other reasons for medical marijuana user accidents, at least until proven otherwise.
In ten years I am predicting California HOV lanes will only be allowed for illegal aliens, driving plug in electric cars, and smoking weed.
You won't get those kind of posts from me, because I totally agree with you.
I have always been in favor of legalizing pot and treating it like alcohol and tobacco, but I dropped my open support years ago, in part because of the attitudes of the legalization proponents toward smoking bans on tobacco, and especially those on this forum.
Agreed. (From a California native)
What happened to the garage door?
I do find one thing funny however; I bet the drug-warriors would freak out to find out how many close people to them use marijuana. "Not my friends or family, NEVER!". Well, see, that is a responsible marijuana user; because you will never know and nor should you. Its their business.
Wow, who’da thunk it?
I care. The people who grow and sell pot do a lot of damage to this country. Without people smoking it they wouldn’t have the market and wouldn’t be smuggling it in by the truckload.
Marijuana And Actual Driving Performance Executive Summary
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration By Robbe HWJ, O'Hanlon JF November 1993
Methinks the data is being skewed with expoential growth of cell phone/texting distractions, not 100% drug caused.
D’oh!
Thanks Signalman. Hey, who ate up all the BBQ chips? And all the leftovers in the fridge?
What is it that makes people think that “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” type questions aren’t the most transparent Alinsky-style propaganda techniques?
While I could see that my perceptions were altered, I was still perceiving things enough to not hit anything.
I commend you for the care you took. Happy Independence Day.
“....but you ought to experience some of our realities....”
I’ll pass on that, maintaining a sound and balanced mind in these times is difficult enough.
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