[Ken H]

On the other hand, it is difficult to say just how many more premature deaths might occur each year due to other factors, such as an increase in deaths due to driving while high.

What evidence do you have for increased traffic deaths in states with medical marijuana laws? Here's a 2011 study that says otherwise =>

ABSTRACT: Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities,and Alcohol Consumption

[snip] In addition, legalization is associated with a nearly 9 percent decrease in traffic fatalities, most likely to due to its impact on alcohol consumption.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/74180276/Medical-Marijuana-Laws-Traffic-Fatalities-and-Alcohol-Consumption-Study

[cherry]

most accidents that occur the cops look for one thing....a drunk....they rarely check for other drugs....

alcohol on your breath is a dead giveaway and its easy to check for with a quick blood sample....weed not so much....weed users can act laid back and the cop would never know their high except they just crashed their car into a light pole.

[AmericanExceptionalist]

What evidence do you have for increased traffic deaths in states with medical marijuana laws?

At this point, none.

And I am open to the possibility that this might not even be the case.

But it does seem reasonable to suppose that it would, indeed, be the case.

[AmericanExceptionalist]

It’s been a long time since the cretins who make the laws in this country have been fit to teach anything to anyone. The laws they write are only self-referentially instructive in the fields of sociopathology and psychotic self-interest.

It is very hard to argue with the proposition that many of our lawmakers, at both the state and national levels, are chiefly animated by self-interest (often masquerading as "the public interest").

The drug laws are not didactic unless one is studying the field of corrupt legislation.

I believe it is reasonable to assert that laws proscribing drug usage are intended to instruct the general public as to what is and is not socially acceptable behavior--even if those writing the laws are often not shining exaamples of high moral character, themselves.