driving

An alarming finding shows that an estimated 14.8 million drivers report getting behind the wheel within one hour after using marijuana in the past 30 days. The impairing effects of marijuana are usually experienced within the first one to four hours after using the drug.1 And marijuana users who drive high are up to twice as likely to be involved in a crash.2

Here are just a few of the health effects you may want to know:

• Marijuana use directly affects the brain—specifically the parts of the brain responsible for memory, learning, and attention.
• The compounds in marijuana can affect the circulatory system and may increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
• Smoking marijuana can lead to a greater risk of bronchitis, cough, and phlegm production.
• Marijuana users are significantly more likely than nonusers to develop chronic mental disorders, including schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a type of mental illness where people might see or hear things that aren't really there (hallucinations).
• Eating foods or drinking beverages that contain marijuana have some different risks than smoking marijuana, including a greater risk of poisoning.
• About 1 in 10 marijuana users will become addicted. For people who begin using before the age of 18, that number rises to 1 in 6.
• Some research shows that using marijuana while you are pregnant[288 KB] can cause health problems in newborns—including low birth weight and developmental problems.
• Marijuana use can slow your reaction time and ability to make decisions when driving[271 KB].

Detailed Information
. Patients freely share their “medicine” with family and friends, and parents are self-diagnosing, and subsequently dosing their children with high-concentration marijuana products for conditions that may simply not exist (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, etc.); or allow their medical cards to expire and continue to grow their own.
The use of marijuana for medical conditions, including pain, needs robust studies, and subsequent products need more regulation and consistency for public consumption. Colorado is an example of the societal effect across a wide spectrum of arenas that comes with rampant cannabis use, particularly in youth use and impaired driving fatalities. The problems Colorado is seeing completely transcend “responsible use” or “marijuana as medicine.” 

If you drive on drugs you are out of your mind.

Fatal crashes involving drivers who recently used marijuana doubled in Washington after the state legalized the drug. Washington was one of the first two states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, and these findings serve as an eye-opening case study for what other states may experience with road safety after legalizing the drug. 

“It’s really difficult to document drugged driving in a relevant way, [because of] the simple fact that THC is fat soluble,” said Margaret Haney, a neurobiologist at Columbia University. “That makes it absorbed in a very different way and much more difficult to relate behavior to, say, [blood] levels of THC or develop a breathalyzer.”

Olympia, WA – Newly released data from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC) shows that marijuana is increasing as a factor in deadly crashes. The number of drivers involved in deadly crashes who tested positive for marijuana increased 48 percent from 2013 to 2014. 
“This study is a step towards answering the myriad of questions we have about the impact of legalized marijuana on driving.

Let us provide a rational answer to a nonsensical question. It is a nonsensical question because blood is never impaired by THC. Never. Alcohol doesn’t impair blood either. These drugs only impair the brain, not the blood.

Cannabis and alcohol acutely impair several driving-related skills in a dose-related fashion, but the effects of cannabis vary more between individuals than they do with alcohol because of tolerance, differences in smoking technique, and different absorptions of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana.