The five-vehicle collision on Interstate 880 in Fremont the night of May 15 was truly horrific. Three people died, including two sisters, aged 14 and nine. Five others were hospitalized, including a youth who is said to be in critical condition. Motorist Dang Nguyen Hai Tran was arrested at the scene \u2014 on suspicion of driving under the influence of cannabis.<\/p>\n
In the report<\/a> on local\u00a0news station KPIX, the newscaster intoned with damning resonance: \u201cThe CHP say they have evidence the 21-year-old driver who caused a five-car pile-up in Fremont was stoned\u2026 The crash is highlighting one of the biggest concerns about legalized pot.\u201d Stanford University\u2019s Dr. Keith Humphreys was quoted as saying, \u201cYour motor coordination is worse\u2026 people who are intoxicated on cannabis, like people who are intoxicated on alcohol, make much worse drivers.\u201d A classmate of one of the slain girls is poignantly told the camera, \u201cHow a person can be so careless to take another person\u2019s life away over a drug, it really is heart-breaking.\u201d<\/p>\n A more distanced analysis following the ghastly incident followed in the\u00a0San Jose Mercury News<\/a>. Like the KPIX account, Mercury News cites statistics from the California Highway Patrol that indicates if trends continue, the nine counties that make up the San Francisco Bay Area could see a 70 percent rise in marijuana DUI arrests this year over last. DUI arrests solely for cannabis in 2017 totaled 197. For January through mid-April of 2018, they are already up to 87.<\/p>\n But the Mercury News acknowledges: \u201cWhat constitutes a \u2018marijuana-related\u2019 accident is still wrapped up in controversy.\u201d<\/p>\n The report notes that in 2016, four years after Colorado legalized cannabis, then-Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson said \u201cmarijuana-related\u201d traffic deaths and hospital visits in the state had \u201cnot significantly\u201d increased since legalization. But according to\u00a0FactCheck<\/a>, Johnson\u2019s claim did not check out. Official stats showed that \u201cmarijuana-related\u201d traffic deaths in Colorado increased 154 percent between 2006 and 2014. Emergency room visits deemed to be \u201clikely related\u201d to cannabis increased by 775 visits from 2011 to 2014.<\/p>\n However, it is something of an open question how meaningful these figures are in terms of causality.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As FactCheck stated, \u201cUnlike alcohol\u2026 testing positive for marijuana doesn\u2019t necessarily mean a person is under the influence of the drug at the time of the traffic accident.\u201d That\u2019s because THC stays in your body a lot longer than alcohol does \u2014 well after the effects wear off.<\/p>\n In May 2016, according to FactCheck, the\u00a0American Automobile Association conducted an analysis of \u201cmarijuana-related\u201d fatalities in Washington state \u2014 which also voted to legalize cannabis in 2012. It found<\/a> that around twice as many \u201cfatal-crash-involved drivers\u201d had THC in their system<\/a> in 2014, compared with previous years.<\/p>\n But the AAA report cautioned that testing positive for THC doesn\u2019t mean the driver was impaired or at fault for the crash. The report added that many THC-positive motorists also had alcohol and other drugs in their system, \u201cwhich in some cases likely contributed more significantly to the crash than did the THC.\u201d<\/p>\n By way of illustration, the Mercury News cited a November 2017 crash in Vermont that killed five teens. A toxicology report for the man accused of causing a crash indicated that he had THC, fentanyl and a sedative in his blood. Authorities acknowledged that the sedative,\u00a0Midazolam<\/a>, causes \u201csignificant impairment in driving and psychomotor abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n The Mercury News is to be applauded for clearing the air at what is certainly a fraught moment in the Bay Area. The entire question of \u201cmarijuana-impaired driving\u201d tends to be misunderstood.\u00a0For example, it is true that Colorado has seen an increase in overall road fatalities since legalization in 2012, as well as an increase in cannabis-related driving offenses. But the increase in road fatalities is consistent with the trend across the U.S. \u2014 and likely related to more motorists on the highways due to low oil prices. Note that a worldwide\u00a0oil slump began<\/a>\u00a0in 2014 \u2014 just in time to lubricate bad propaganda for cannabis legalization. In 2009, when the oil price spike set off by the Iraq war was at its peak, highway fatalities coast to coast dropped to 1960s levels, as the\u00a0Associated Press noted at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n In fact, a 2011 study by the University of Colorado at Denver (from before the oil slump) found a\u00a0reduction in traffic fatalities<\/a>\u00a0in states that had legalized medical marijuana. A probable explanation is that folks had been turning to legal cannabis instead of alcohol \u2014 which impairs driving far more dramatically.<\/p>\n And contrary to impression gleaned from media sound-bites, the difference between cannabis and alcohol in terms of impact on driving is quantifiable. A 2015 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that drivers high on cannabis are not nearly as impaired as drunk drivers. As the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0summed up the findings<\/a>: \u201cAfter adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, drivers who tested positive for marijuana were no more likely to crash than who had not used any drugs or alcohol prior to driving.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul Armentano, deputy director at NORML<\/a>, has\u00a0emphasized<\/a>\u00a0the contrast with alcohol: \u201cWe don\u2019t have a consensus as to what levels of THC are consistently correlated with behavioral impairment.\u201d<\/p>\n So let\u2019s see what facts emerge from the investigation into last week\u2019s crash in the Bay Area. Certainly, the cannabis community should emphasize responsible use. Motorists who use cannabis \u2014 like all motorists \u2014 must take their state of mind and body while behind the wheel with the utmost seriousness. But let\u2019s also strive for a little perspective amid the media rush to blame cannabis for traffic fatalities in simplistic terms.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> did you know about the nuances behind cannabis-impaired driving?<\/p>\n The post California Crash Highlights Controversy Around Cannabis-Impaired Driving<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The five-vehicle collision on Interstate 880 in Fremont the night of May 15 was truly horrific. Three people died, including two sisters, aged 14 and nine. Five others were hospitalized, including a youth who is said to be in critical condition. Motorist Dang Nguyen Hai Tran was arrested at theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4340,50,327,1697,484,2406,4341,81,4136,420],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26345,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26344\/revisions\/26345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Controversy Around Testing Drivers for THC<\/h4>\n
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More Crashes Because of More Drivers, or More Cannabis?<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: California Crash Highlights Controversy Around Cannabis-Impaired Driving<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"