Contrary to concerns among some critics that legalizing marijuana would normalize cannabis-impaired driving, a new study found \u201cno support that marijuana legalization increased tolerant behaviors and attitudes toward driving after marijuana use.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report, authored by researchers at Nationwide Children\u2019s Hospital and Ohio State University and published late last month in Biometrical Journal, used data from national traffic safety survey and compared responses from Kentucky and Tennessee\u2014where medical marijuana was illegal during the study period\u2014against responses from eight other states where medical cannabis was already legal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concern that legalizing marijuana will affect traffic safety is prevalent in both academic and political discourse,\u201d the study says, contending that the relationship \u201ccan be tested using causal interference methods that estimate treatment effects on those in states who have yet to legalize medical marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever,\u201d authors added, \u201canswering this causal question with survey data requires novel analytical techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authors looked at responses to four questions in the Traffic Safety Culture Index (TSCI), a national survey conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. The questions asked about whether people had driven within an hour of marijuana use, how personally acceptable they found driving after marijuana use (what researchers referred to as \u201cDAMU\u201d), how they felt consumption affected one\u2019s driving ability and whether they viewed drugged driving as a threat to their personal safety.<\/p>\n
Using a matched-pairs design, the analysis matched responses from Kentucky or Tennessee with responses from legal medical marijuana states on a one-to-one basis\u2014an effort to control for other variations between people filling out the survey and isolate the variable of cannabis\u2019s legal status. That data was then used to model any potential effects of the policy change in Kentucky and Tennessee.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe rooted our study in the idea that medical marijuana legalization would cause residents would exhibit greater tolerance toward DAMU,\u201d wrote the three-author research team. \u201cWe found practically no evidence for this hypothesis, and our conclusions were unlikely to change due to the moderate level of unmeasured confounding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though the team described the statistical findings of the analysis as robust, they acknowledged that limitations in methodology could affect the reliability of the findings. For one, they noted that the responses were self-reported and may not be wholly accurate. Data was also limited to only a single year, 2017, in which all four relevant cannabis-related questions were included on the TSCI survey.<\/p>\n
The study<\/a> also attempted to predict the effects of legalization in only two Southern states, the report says, noting that the findings \u201cmay not generalize to other states that have yet to legalize medical marijuana.\u201d Further, authors said they could have limited their pool of legal medical marijuana states to only those immediately neighboring Kentucky and Tennessee, which may have better controlled for cultural differences between populations.<\/p>\n Despite drugged driving frequently arising in policy discussion around marijuana reform, Americans more broadly say they\u2019re more concerned about other risky practices, such as using a cell phone, driving drunk, going too fast or driving aggressively<\/a>. That\u2019s according to a Pew Research Center poll released last month.<\/p>\n The survey, which looked at public opinion on traffic concerns, found a majority of Americans (82 percent) still regard driving while high on cannabis to be either a major problem (37 percent) or minor problem (45 percent) in their area. But respondents ranked it lowest among six behaviors included in the survey.<\/p>\n For example, 96 percent of respondents said they considered driving while distracted by cellphones a problematic issue in their community. Another 94 percent said speeding was a problem, while 93 percent said aggressive driving behaviors such as a tailgating was a concern.<\/p>\n Ninety-two percent identified drunk driving as a problem where they live.<\/p>\n A recent study by Canada\u2019s public health agency, Health Canada, meanwhile, found that self-reported rates of driving after cannabis use fell in the years following nationwide legalization<\/a>. Specifically, 18 percent of people who reported using cannabis within the past year also said they\u2019d driven afterward, which officials described as \u201ca significant decline from 27% in 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n A separate scientific review recently concluded that most available research on cannabis-impaired driving<\/a>\u00a0identified \u201cno significant linear correlations between blood THC and measures of driving,\u201d although there was an observed relationship between levels of the cannabinoid and reduced performance in some more complex driving situations.<\/p>\n In a separate report earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said there\u2019s\u00a0\u201crelatively little research\u201d backing the idea that THC concentration in the blood can be used to determine impairment<\/a>, calling into question laws in several states that set \u201cper se\u201d limits for cannabinoid metabolites.<\/p>\n Similarly, a Department of Justice (DOJ) researcher said in February that\u00a0states may need to \u201cget away from that idea\u201d that marijuana impairment can be tested based on the concentration of THC in a person\u2019s system<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have chronic users versus infrequent users, they have very different concentrations correlated to different effects,\u201d Frances Scott, a physical scientist at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Office of Investigative and Forensic Sciences under DOJ, said.<\/p>\n That issue was also examined in a recent federally funded study that identified\u00a0two different methods of more accurately testing for recent THC use<\/a>\u00a0that accounts for the fact that metabolites of the cannabinoid can stay present in a person\u2019s system for weeks or months after consumption.<\/p>\n Back in 2022, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) sent a letter to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and NHTSA\u00a0seeking an update on the status of a federal report into testing THC-impaired drivers<\/a>. The department was required to complete the report\u00a0under a large-scale infrastructure bill<\/a>\u00a0that President Joe Biden (D) signed, but\u00a0it missed that deadline and is unclear how much longer it will take<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last summer, a congressional report for a Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) bill said that the House Appropriations Committee \u201ccontinues to support the development of an objective standard to measure marijuana impairment and a related field sobriety test to ensure highway safety<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n A study published in 2019 concluded that those who drive at the legal THC limit\u2014which is typically between two to five nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood\u2014were not statistically more likely to be involved in an accident<\/a>\u00a0compared to people who haven\u2019t used marijuana.<\/p>\n Separately, the\u00a0Congressional Research Service in 2019 determined<\/a>\u00a0that while \u201cmarijuana consumption can affect a person\u2019s response times and motor performance \u2026 studies of the impact of marijuana consumption on a driver\u2019s risk of being involved in a crash have produced conflicting results, with some studies finding little or no increased risk of a crash from marijuana usage.\u201d<\/p>\n Another study from 2022 found that smoking CBD-rich marijuana had\u00a0\u201cno significant impact\u201d on driving ability<\/a>, despite the fact that all study participants exceeded the per se limit for THC in their blood.<\/p>\n Legalizing Marijuana Led To \u2018Immediate Decline\u2019 In Opioid Overdose Deaths In U.S. States, New Research Concludes<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post New Study Finds \u2018No Support\u2019 For Fear That Marijuana Legalization Normalizes Impaired Driving<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Contrary to concerns among some critics that legalizing marijuana would normalize cannabis-impaired driving, a new study found \u201cno support that marijuana legalization increased tolerant behaviors and attitudes toward driving after marijuana use.\u201d The report, authored by researchers at Nationwide Children\u2019s Hospital and Ohio State University and published late last monthContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,15462],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79530"}],"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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79531,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79530\/revisions\/79531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: New Study Finds \u2018No Support\u2019 For Fear That Marijuana Legalization Normalizes Impaired Driving<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"