Medical Marijuana and Auto Accidents

Some drivers pose a potential risk when they take to the roads, rolling too stoned. A growing body of national statistics indicates that fatal crashes involving drugged drivers have increased, and law enforcement blames medical marijuana use. rnThe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that 16.3% of the drivers it has randomly studied during the night had taken various legal and illegal impairing drugs. The agency states that half of these drivers were driving while high on marijuana. The California Highway Patrol attributes the death and injury of some 1,000 drivers each year to drugged drivers. Most states have no standard that defines the amount of pot that a driver is allowed to have in his or her system, according to the Los Angeles Times. Thirteen states have zero-tolerance laws; another 35 states have no standard in place. To detect marijuana impairment typically requires police to administer a lengthy, 12-point examination. “Marijuana is a significant and important contributing factor in a growing number of fatal accidents,” Gil Kerlikowske, director of National Drug Control Policy in the White House and former Seattle police chief, told the Los Angeles Times. rnEven in the late 1970s, federal officials stated they were concerned about how significantly impaired stoned drivers might be. The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare had released its sixth annual “Marijuana and Health” study. Dr. Robert L. DuPont, the agency’s director at the time of its release in 1977, told United Press International that his primary concern was pot’s “potential effect on automobile accidents in this country,” and advocated “the need to develop a simple way to detect marijuana in the body.” The prime intoxicant in marijuana, known as delta-9 THC, remains in the body long after THC is no longer in the blood. It continues to be released over the course of days, say experts, and can continue to impair a driver. A significant contributor to the driving while stoned debate is the decriminalization of marijuana. The amount that is legal to possess by state law is a contentious point that some lawmakers argue is merely an arbitrary standard. “It can’t be OK if you have 30 marijuana cigarettes and bad if you have 50 marijuana cigarettes,” Themis Klarides, a Republicam state congresswoman told Slate. “It’s either bad or it’s not bad.” Another complicating factor is that pot users may also be drinking. How the combination impairs drivers -- and the amount needed of each to trigger impairment -- is also unknown. Scientists also don’t know whether chronic users might have some continual impairment that could impede their driving skills. “A lot of effort has gone into the study of drugged driving and marijuana, because that is the most prevalent drug, but we are not nearly to the point where we are with alcohol,” Jeffrey P. Michael, the NHTSA’s impaired-driving director, told the Los Angeles Times. “We don’t know what level of marijuana impairs a driver.”