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Adden

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The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned (Edit: Secondary Article)
#21928486 - 07/11/15 11:37 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Edit: A less sensationalist article added later on in thread.
The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned
Tia Ghose LiveScience.com By: Tia Ghose
Published: July 06, 2015 02:27pm ET on LiveScience.
Most Americans think that driving while high on marijuana isn't that dangerous, according to a recent Gallup poll. About 70 percent of people polled said that people who drive while impaired by marijuana are "not much of a problem" or only a "somewhat serious problem," whereas just 29 percent said it was a very serious problem. By contrast, 79 percent of Americans think drivers who are impaired by alcohol are a very serious problem. Those in the 79 percent group are right about the dangers of alcohol: In 2013, nearly a third of all fatal accidents were caused by alcohol impairment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But is it really safe to drive while high on marijuana? Though marijuana does impair driving abilities, there aren't data that show that it may increase traffic accidents, said Benjamin Hansen, an economist at the University of Oregon in Eugene and at the National Bureau of Economic Research, who has studied marijuana legalization in relation to driving accidents. What's more, if people who would ordinarily drink and drive instead choose to smoke and drive, that may be safer for the population as a whole, he added.
Marijuana impairs driving
To be perfectly clear: It's always safer to drive when you're not stoned, Hansen said. A review of 60 studies presented in 1995 [emphasis added] at the International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety found that marijuana impairs all the cognitive abilities needed for safe driving, including tracking, motor coordination, visual function and divided attention. Still, driving while high may not be nearly as dangerous as driving while drunk. The cognitive impairments caused by marijuana are correlated with only modest reductions in driving performance in driving simulations, according to a 2009 study in the American Journal of Addictions. And in a study published June 23 in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, researchers found that people who used vaporized marijuana were more likely to weave within their own lane, than people who were sober, but not more likely to weave out of their lane or speed. Drunk drivers, by contrast, were likely to do all three.
Increased Accidents? The tie between marijuana and traffic accidents is even shakier. For example, although a 2010 study in the journal Public Health Reports found that 11 percent of drivers killed in accidents had taken at least one drug, the link to marijuana is unclear. Those drivers were not necessarily using marijuana, and even if they had the drug in their systems, that doesn't mean they were high at the time of the accident, Hansen said.
There's no way to measure marijuana with a breathalyzer, so researchers use blood tests, but blood concentrations of marijuana's active ingredient THC can stay persistently high in chronic users. In traffic-fatality studies, any amount of THC in the blood, no matter how tiny, counts as a positive drug test.
So at least some of the people whose deaths are counted in such studies may not have been high at the time of the accident, Hansen said.
What's more, some studies suggest marijuana users can effectively compensate for their impairments. People who are drunk "are physically impaired, and they don't really think they're physically impaired," Hansen told Live Science "They'll drive faster, they'll follow cars at closer distances, they'll make rash, last-minute decisions." By contrast, people who are slightly stoned may be more risk-averse and overestimate their impairment. For instance, people who have smoked just a third of a joint will say they are impaired, even when driving tests show no such effects, according to a 1993 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "They'll drive slower, they'll follow cars at greater distances, they'll take some actions that at least somewhat offset the fact that they're impaired," Hansen said. And in a 2013 study in the Journal of Law and Economics, Hansen and his colleagues found that in the year after medical marijuana laws were passed, traffic fatalities fell. The sharpest reductions were found in evening accidents and drunk-driving or alcohol-related accidents. Hansen and his colleagues hypothesized that marijuana may actually be decreasing accidents because more people who would normally be drinking are instead using marijuana. However, it's tricky to untangle the relationship, as traffic fatalities have been falling nationwide for several years, according to the Insurance institute for Highway Safety. Improved car safety, lower drunk-driving rates overall or other unknown factors could play a role in that decline, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Legal Limits
When people are very high, they become more impaired and start to take more risks, just like drunk drivers, Hansen said. Current state guidelines may not be setting legal marijuana blood limits appropriately, he said. In the Drug and Alcohol Dependence study, within-lane weaving began to occur once the person's blood levels reached about 13 micrograms of THC per liter of blood. In fact, people with that level of THC had the same level of impairment as people with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent, which is the legal limit for alcohol in many states. But the legal limit for THC in Washington and Colorado is 5 micrograms per liter — less than half the amount found to be impairing in that study. (Smoking a joint typically raises a person's THC levels to about 20 micrograms per liter, Hansen said.) The study also found that marijuana and alcohol had an additive effect on impairment, and people frequently consume the two together, so legal drug limits should account for these additive effects, the study found.
Edited by Adden (07/14/15 02:32 PM)
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misterogerz


Registered: 06/07/02
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Adden] 3
#21928573 - 07/11/15 11:54 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Unless you are eating unknown doses or never smoked weed, this is bullshit. I've driven on re-dosed shrooms/stoned better than anyone leaves a bar.
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Psilosopherr
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: misterogerz]
#21928581 - 07/11/15 11:57 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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one study says you're fine even if you're super high; another says its super dangerous.
Forces us all to go by how we feel about it. Come on science, so biased.
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misterogerz


Registered: 06/07/02
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21928621 - 07/11/15 12:06 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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well... heroin is like meth in ways...
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Adden

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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21928643 - 07/11/15 12:15 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'd rather people drive while on nothing at all.. On the other hand, I see 75+ year old drivers that should be off the road. Same with people on phones, Bluetooth or not.
I had to call the sheriff's office over an old lady last summer. I was behind her and watched her nearly hit 7 pedestrians, three cyclists, and three children in a crosswalk. I lightly tapped my horn twice while she was approaching pedestrians. A mother grabbed her two kids by their collars and thank god they did or they'd be dead.
I had to go to the police station and give information to a deputy - I feel terrible about "narcing" - but when she hopped the curb and almost killed a group of beach-goers I had to.
Quote:
"They'll drive slower, they'll follow cars at greater distances, they'll take some actions that at least somewhat offset the fact that they're impaired," Hansen said.
I do believe people that are new to smoking or don't understand the dangers are a higher risk; however, I think results and studies from 20 years ago are nearly (or completely) irrelevant. These studies are always biased or not as thorough, and a lot of things have changed.
People texting while driving are a bigger risk. I wouldn't mind if all cell phones for people under the age of 21 should go into SOS mode, or people who have been convicted of DUI's or other such distractions should have them, depending upon severity and behavioral trends.
When elderly people and those distracted while driving by cell phones are taken care of, I'll give more of a shit about someone who smoked 8 hours ago.
There should be mandatory classes to get your license back if you've endangered anyone's life in any way on the road. Grabbing your car keys and smoking "one last dab" is irresponsible and morally reprehensible. If you want to kill yourself, throw a rope over a rafter, don't put other people in danger.
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misterogerz


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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Adden]
#21928655 - 07/11/15 12:18 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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i have found people to be more distracting, and music sometimes helps to focus if there aren't other problems
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Adden

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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: misterogerz] 1
#21928663 - 07/11/15 12:21 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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I honestly think terrible drivers are a higher risk than stoners.
When I was younger, friends would be so paranoid about driving high and getting caught that they'd play some video games or eat before getting in their cars.
Self-control and responsibility for one's own actions are at an all time low and entitlement is an all time high.
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Adden

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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Adden]
#21928709 - 07/11/15 12:35 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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If you couldn't tell, I'm torn on the issue, but I'd rather more important dangers be focused on. I know the weed thing is a hot topic and all, but I've seen more people get in wrecks (or nearly) from texting and driving. At what point does a stoner turn on their right signal and merge two lanes to the left? You know, come on.
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Le_Canard
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Adden]
#21928719 - 07/11/15 12:37 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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I've been smoking the devil weed for longer than most folks here have been alive and I've never been in an accident whilst stoned. In fact, I'm lot more cautious when I'm driving baked. My biggest problem is that I get lost on familiar streets if I'm particularly high.
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MinnesnowtaNice
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Le_Canard]
#21928818 - 07/11/15 01:04 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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What else are you supposed to do while driving? But for real this is some bullshit, anyone who knows anything about weed could tell your that no you probably shouldn't be driving stoned, but it's def not a big deal.
-------------------- we are all thought forms in a cloud of synchronistic events.
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Le_Canard
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: MinnesnowtaNice]
#21928835 - 07/11/15 01:09 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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I certainly don't recommend it and I haven't done it in years, but I was young and crazy once too. It's no where near as debilitating whilst driving as say, booze is.
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BoomerMan420
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Le_Canard]
#21928846 - 07/11/15 01:14 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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PFFFT driving WITHOUT a joint hahaha that's a good one got to have greenery driving around the scenery.
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Le_Canard
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: BoomerMan420]
#21928874 - 07/11/15 01:22 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Adden

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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: MinnesnowtaNice] 1
#21928940 - 07/11/15 01:44 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
MinnesnowtaNice said: What else are you supposed to do while driving?
Um, focus on the road, be aware of other dangerous drivers, and not kill people with a 2000lb weapon going 65mph?
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TNK
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: misterogerz]
#21929404 - 07/11/15 03:47 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
misterogerz said: Unless you are eating unknown doses or never smoked weed, this is bullshit. I've driven on re-dosed shrooms/stoned better than anyone leaves a bar.
Not everyone is affected the same, by the same substances.
-------------------- Edited by TNK (02/22/22 22:22 PM)
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tryptkaloids
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Adden]
#21929464 - 07/11/15 04:02 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'm always stoned. the only difference that being stoned makes for driving (for me) is I don't take right on red or I give up the right of way when it is mine. it's much more dangerous to drive tired or while eating
-------------------- "Remember, kids, the difference between science and screwing around is writing it down" -adam savage Flowchart for Recommended plan of action. Learn the tried and true way to grow mushrooms Use the Damn search engine After you know what you're doing, take a break Pick a book, Make some chips! Josex said:Don't take the site seriously bro, ain't worth it.
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rajajuju
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: tryptkaloids]
#21929923 - 07/11/15 05:47 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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pffft... ive done some seriously stupid DUI shit (without getting caught).. acid, shrooms, AMT, even fucking ayahuasca (for about a mile, and yeh, almost didnt make it but still)
and they want to say driving on weed is dangerous? LOL - i fucking learned to drive while i was high, i was the chauffeur of the group at like 15 years old
the ayahuasca driving is documented in a trip report on erowid... lemme dig that up:
https://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=68907
--------------------
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BlackWidow

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`
Edited by BlackWidow (02/03/21 03:52 PM)
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MagicMush123
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: BlackWidow]
#21929988 - 07/11/15 06:08 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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It all comes down to how much you experience have.. On that same note if they tested driving while on tobacco, newer users would show signs of impairment also!
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tryptkaloids
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: rajajuju]
#21930040 - 07/11/15 06:20 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
rajajuju said: pffft... ive done some seriously stupid DUI shit (without getting caught).. acid, shrooms, AMT, even fucking ayahuasca (for about a mile, and yeh, almost didnt make it but still)
and they want to say driving on weed is dangerous? LOL - i fucking learned to drive while i was high, i was the chauffeur of the group at like 15 years old
the ayahuasca driving is documented in a trip report on erowid... lemme dig that up:
https://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=68907
excellent read! made making a brew set in stone for me
-------------------- "Remember, kids, the difference between science and screwing around is writing it down" -adam savage Flowchart for Recommended plan of action. Learn the tried and true way to grow mushrooms Use the Damn search engine After you know what you're doing, take a break Pick a book, Make some chips! Josex said:Don't take the site seriously bro, ain't worth it.
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Psilosopherr
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: TNK]
#21930076 - 07/11/15 06:26 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
TheNatureKid said:
Quote:
misterogerz said: Unless you are eating unknown doses or never smoked weed, this is bullshit. I've driven on re-dosed shrooms/stoned better than anyone leaves a bar.
Not everyone is affected the same, by the same substances.
Thank you for saying this. I am always forgetting this when discussing drugs
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dwnlw2slw
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21930590 - 07/11/15 08:01 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Also there's a lil something called state-specific learning, which basically means that you will improve at a given task if you practice it while in that state.
By the way, I'm sooo "disturbed."
-------------------- "Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music." -Johann Wolfgang Goethe "Slow is the experience of all deep fountains: long have they to wait until they know what has fallen into their depths." -Nietzsche My avatar is called "Inner Sanctum" by Luke Brown.
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Psychedelics yummy
Humanoid



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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: MagicMush123]
#21930951 - 07/11/15 09:28 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
MagicMush123 said: It all comes down to how much you experience have.. On that same note if they tested driving while on tobacco, newer users would show signs of impairment also!
i nearly died after my grandma smoked her 2nd cigarette ever before we drove home from the theater. turned into oncoming traffic and nearly drove onto a curb after turning onto a one way road. backed up in the middle of the intersection. the whole time before that she was talking about how lightheaded she was, but insisted she was fine
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misterogerz


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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21931023 - 07/11/15 09:47 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
rbalzer said:
Quote:
TheNatureKid said:
Quote:
misterogerz said: Unless you are eating unknown doses or never smoked weed, this is bullshit. I've driven on re-dosed shrooms/stoned better than anyone leaves a bar.
Not everyone is affected the same, by the same substances.
Thank you for saying this. I am always forgetting this when discussing drugs
i was totally focused then
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slowgrowloph
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: misterogerz] 1
#21931420 - 07/11/15 11:33 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Come on, how can anyone justify driving while high? Regardless of how much of a tolerance you have, you are still driving impaired. Fuck how much "more" impaired you might be if you drank and drove, you are still impaired when high. I am a huge advocate of legalizing weed, but I feel like similar laws should apply. If you drink and drive, you get a DUI, if you get high enough to impair your driving, you get a DUI. Not only are you putting yourself in danger, you are putting others in danger. DUI's are one of the laws I am actually in favor of. Don't put me or my children in danger because you want to drive fucked up.
--------------------
“Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.” -Hunter S. Thompson “One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.” -Norman Maclean
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tryptkaloids
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: slowgrowloph]
#21931434 - 07/11/15 11:37 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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that's the thing. i'm fucked up if i'm not stoned
-------------------- "Remember, kids, the difference between science and screwing around is writing it down" -adam savage Flowchart for Recommended plan of action. Learn the tried and true way to grow mushrooms Use the Damn search engine After you know what you're doing, take a break Pick a book, Make some chips! Josex said:Don't take the site seriously bro, ain't worth it.
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tryptkaloids
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: tryptkaloids]
#21931447 - 07/11/15 11:39 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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i don't care what you say, accidents happen because people aren't paying attention. I pay more attention when I have smoked than when I'm wanting to smoke
-------------------- "Remember, kids, the difference between science and screwing around is writing it down" -adam savage Flowchart for Recommended plan of action. Learn the tried and true way to grow mushrooms Use the Damn search engine After you know what you're doing, take a break Pick a book, Make some chips! Josex said:Don't take the site seriously bro, ain't worth it.
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Adden

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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: tryptkaloids]
#21931497 - 07/11/15 11:50 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
tryptkaloids said: that's the thing. i'm fucked up if i'm not stoned
Then stay off the road and do drugs in your mom's basement.
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rajajuju
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Adden]
#21931565 - 07/12/15 12:04 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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if you guys wanna be cops youre on the wrong fucking forum
sit down, shut up, go play with your dolls or whatever - you can be in total control!!
--------------------
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Adden

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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: rajajuju]
#21931575 - 07/12/15 12:07 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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So if someone killed your father or sister driving drunk it would be a tragedy, but if they were stoned it would be okay?
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Psilosopherr
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: slowgrowloph]
#21931835 - 07/12/15 01:46 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
slowgrowloph said: Come on, how can anyone justify driving while high? Regardless of how much of a tolerance you have, you are still driving impaired. Fuck how much "more" impaired you might be if you drank and drove, you are still impaired when high. I am a huge advocate of legalizing weed, but I feel like similar laws should apply. If you drink and drive, you get a DUI, if you get high enough to impair your driving, you get a DUI. Not only are you putting yourself in danger, you are putting others in danger. DUI's are one of the laws I am actually in favor of. Don't put me or my children in danger because you want to drive fucked up.
I think everybody is in favor of the existence of DUI laws, but I have a huge problem with the severity of the penalties, and the forcing AA on people.
The laws are that severe because of how impaired drunk people can get. I don't think the penalty should be nearly as bad for driving stoned. Doesn't seem fair at all to me
Edited by Psilosopherr (07/12/15 01:47 AM)
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LSDylan
bass music enjoyer



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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21932195 - 07/12/15 05:59 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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The worst thing I have ever done while driving stoned is pull up to an empty intersection and stop at a green light before I realized that I could just dive. Nobody got hurt.
I actually just got off of probation about three months ago and I have noticed that I have been driving much slower ever since I started smoking again. I'm not driving so slow to the point of impeding traffic, but I normally am quite impatient so looking down to realize that I am going two under is very nice for me.
-------------------- DanceSafe | Voluntaryism
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tryptkaloids
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: LSDylan]
#21932601 - 07/12/15 09:14 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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-------------------- "Remember, kids, the difference between science and screwing around is writing it down" -adam savage Flowchart for Recommended plan of action. Learn the tried and true way to grow mushrooms Use the Damn search engine After you know what you're doing, take a break Pick a book, Make some chips! Josex said:Don't take the site seriously bro, ain't worth it.
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natzyshroomer
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: tryptkaloids]
#21932994 - 07/12/15 11:16 AM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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fucking great "researchers found that people who used vaporized marijuana were more likely to weave within their own lane"
... christ they are going to be able to find us!
-------------------- All submitted posts are by Someone Who Isn't Me and in any event are works of pure fiction or outright lies. Any information, statement, or assertion contained therein should be considered pure unadulterated bullshit
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Psilosopherr
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: natzyshroomer] 1
#21933197 - 07/12/15 12:03 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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I only drive stoned, lets see if I can even think of the worst thing I've done while driving that way..

Actually, I think it would have to be stopping when I didn't need to at a green light. how funny that we did the exact same thing.
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dwnlw2slw
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21938398 - 07/13/15 05:49 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/health/driving-under-the-influence-of-marijuana.html?hp&_r=0
That is a less sensionalistic article. I found it in the second topic under "similar threads" at the bottom of this page.
-------------------- "Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music." -Johann Wolfgang Goethe "Slow is the experience of all deep fountains: long have they to wait until they know what has fallen into their depths." -Nietzsche My avatar is called "Inner Sanctum" by Luke Brown.
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BoomerMan420
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: dwnlw2slw]
#21938487 - 07/13/15 06:05 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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I have only had a car accident when I was sober FUCKING STUPID DRIVERS!!!! I hate when there is 3 lanes I'm in the far right (slow Lane) and some fucktard has to ride my ass... there is two other lanes wide open you fucking tard now I could see if I was in the fast lane of course but in the slow lane you twat go around you dumb idiot BAAHHHH!!
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Visionary Tools



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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21942035 - 07/14/15 01:18 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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rbalzer said: one study says you're fine even if you're super high; another says its super dangerous.
Forces us all to go by how we feel about it. Come on science, so biased.
if I'm super high i don't feel like driving or doing much of anything.
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Adden

Registered: 06/04/03
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Re: The Disturbing Truth About Driving While Stoned [Re: dwnlw2slw]
#21942266 - 07/14/15 02:28 PM (8 years, 6 months ago) |
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dwnlw2slw said: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/health/driving-under-the-influence-of-marijuana.html?hp&_r=0
That is a less sensionalistic article. I found it in the second topic under "similar threads" at the bottom of this page.
Driving Under the Influence, of Marijuana
A billboard in Newark. A highway safety official in Colorado, where marijuana is legal, said that “a lot of people don’t think D.U.I. laws apply.”
CARLO ALLEGRI / REUTERS 344 By MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER FEBRUARY 17, 2014 If you are pulled over on suspicion of drunken driving, the police officer is likely to ask you to complete three tasks: Follow a pen with your eyes while the officer moves it back and forth; get out of the car and walk nine steps, heel to toe, turn on one foot and go back; and stand on one leg for 30 seconds.
Score well on all three of these Olympic events, and there’s a very good chance that you are not drunk. This so-called standard field sobriety test has been shown to catch 88 percent of drivers under the influence of alcohol.
But it is nowhere near as good at spotting a stoned driver.
In a 2012 study published in the journal Psychopharmacology, only 30 percent of people under the influence of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, failed the field test. And its ability to identify a stoned driver seems to depend heavily on whether the driver is accustomed to being stoned.
Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin in the film “Up in Smoke.” In one study, only 30 percent of drivers who had smoked marijuana failed a sobriety test. EVERETT COLLECTION A 21-year-old on his first bender and a hardened alcoholic will both wobble on one foot. But the same is not necessarily true of a driver who just smoked his first joint and the stoner who is high five days a week. In another study, 50 percent of the less frequent smokers failed the field test.
As more states legalize medical and recreational marijuana, distinctions like these will grow more and more important. But science’s answers to crucial questions about driving while stoned — how dangerous it is, how to test for impairment, and how the risks compare to driving drunk — have been slow to reach the general public.
“Our goal is to put out the science and have it used for evidence-based drug policy,” said Marilyn A. Huestis, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “But I think it’s a mishmash.”
A 2007 study found that 12 percent of the drivers randomly stopped on American highways on Friday and Saturday nights had been drinking. (In return for taking part in the study, intoxicated drivers were told they would not be arrested, just taken home.)
Six percent of the drivers tested positive for marijuana — a number that is likely to go up with increased availability. Some experts and officials are concerned that the campaign against drunken driving has not gotten through to marijuana smokers.
“We’ve done phone surveys, and we’re hearing that a lot of people think D.U.I. laws don’t apply to marijuana,” said Glenn Davis, highway safety manager at the Department of Transportation in Colorado, where recreational marijuana use became legal on Jan. 1. “And there’s always somebody who says, ‘I drive better while high.’ ”
Evidence suggests that is not the case. But it also suggests that we may not have as much to fear from stoned driving as from drunken driving. Some researchers say that limited resources are better applied to continuing to reduce drunken driving. Stoned driving, they say, is simply less dangerous.
Still, it is clear that marijuana use causes deficits that affect driving ability, Dr. Huestis said. She noted that several researchers, working independently of one another, have come up with the same estimate: a twofold increase in the risk of an accident if there is any measurable amount of THC in the bloodstream.
The estimate is based on review papers that considered the results of many individual studies. The results were often contradictory — some of the papers showed no increase in risk, or even a decrease — but the twofold estimate is widely accepted.
The estimate is low, however, compared with the dangers of drunken driving. A recent study of federal crash data found that 20-year-old drivers with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent — the legal limit for driving — had an almost 20-fold increase in the risk of a fatal accident compared with sober drivers. For older adults, up to age 34, the increase was ninefold.
The study’s lead author, Eduardo Romano, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, said that once he adjusted for demographics and the presence of alcohol, marijuana did not statistically increase the risk of a crash.
“Despite our results, I still think that marijuana contributes to crash risk,” he said, “only that its contribution is not as important as it was expected.”
The difference in risk between marijuana and alcohol can probably be explained by two things, Dr. Huestis and Dr. Romano both say. First, stoned drivers drive differently from drunken ones, and they have different deficits. Drunken drivers tend to drive faster than normal and to overestimate their skills, studies have shown; the opposite is true for stoned drivers.
“The joke with that is Cheech and Chong being arrested for doing 20 on the freeway,” said Mark A. R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the U.C.L.A. School of Public Affairs.
Dr. Huestis also found that in laboratory studies, most people who were high could pass simple tests of memory, addition and subtraction, though they had to use more brainpower than sober people who passed the same tests. People who were drunk were much more likely to fail.
The deficits of being stoned really began to show up, she said, when people had to handle multiple tasks at once and were confronted with something unexpected.
“It’s typical to see a young adolescent with three or four other kids in the car,” she said of stoned driving. “He’s aware he might be impaired, so he’s driving carefully.
“But then he sees an old man in the middle of the street. All his senses say, ‘This guy is there but will be out of way by the time I get there.’ But then the old man drops his keys and he’s slower than the kid expected. By the time it takes to process a change in the situation, there’s an accident.”
Another factor is location. A lot of drinking is done in bars and clubs, away from home, with patrons driving to get there and then leaving by car. By contrast, marijuana smokers tend to get high at home.
There is a lot of debate about how best to prove that drivers under the influence of THC are too intoxicated to drive. Blood-alcohol content can be reliably tested on the side of the road with a Breathalyzer, and ample data link rising levels of blood alcohol to decreases in driving skills. The same is not true for marijuana.
THC levels must be measured from blood or urine samples, which are typically taken hours after an arrest. Urine tests, which look for a metabolite of THC rather than the drug itself, return a positive result days or weeks after someone has actually smoked. Yet most states have laws that equate any detectable level of THC metabolite in urine with detectable levels of actual THC in blood, and criminalize both. Only six states have set legal limits for THC concentration in the blood. In Colorado and Washington, where recreational use has been legalized, that limit is five nanograms per milliliter of blood, or five parts per billion.
The problem, Dr. Huestis said, was that studies from Europe suggested that this limit was far too high. Ninety percent of impaired-driving cases in Sweden would be missed at that level, she said.
The studies indicated that a better limit would be just one nanogram per milliliter, she said. But because THC builds up in fatty tissue and is released slowly over time, such a limit would ensnare frequent users who may not actually be high. Indeed, if you smoke often enough, your blood-THC content might still be five nanograms per milliliter a day after you last lit up.
All of these facts lead experts like Dr. Romano and Dr. Kleiman to believe that public resources are better spent combating drunken driving. Stoned driving, they say, is best dealt with by discouraging people from mixing marijuana and alcohol — a combination that is even riskier than alcohol alone — and by policies that minimize marijuana’s risk on the road.
For instance, states that legalize recreational marijuana, Dr. Kleiman said, should ban establishments like pot bars that encourage people to smoke away from home. And Dr. Romano said that lowering the legal blood-alcohol concentration, or B.A.C., to 0.05 or even 0.02 percent would reduce risk far more effectively than any effort to curb stoned driving.
“I’m not saying marijuana is safe,” he said. “But to me it’s clear that lowering the B.A.C. should be our top priority. That policy would save more lives.”
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