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AAA Study: Blood THC Levels After Smoking Pot Are Useless In Defining 'Too High To Drive' (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Blood tests that try to quantify marijuana use are in fact useless at assessing how impaired a driver is, according to a study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. The study found that people with low blood amounts of THC -- or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive component of pot -- may still act as if they're really stoned. On the other hand, some people may have THC measurements off the charts yet still act normally. The finding is critical because several states have already set legal limits for the amount of THC a person can have in their blood while driving. AAA concluded that such limits are "arbitrary and unsupported by science, which could result in unsafe motorists going free and others being wrongfully convicted for impaired driving." The conclusion echoes that of other researchers that also noted no correlation between blood THC levels and impairment. Still, there is a need to deter people from smoking pot while driving, AAA argues, as it can impair driving. It recommends that until scientifically valid measures of impairments are put into place, law enforcement should use a combination of behavior and psychological tests to assess whether drivers who use marijuana are safe to drive.
I used to very successfully know when my friends were stoned by their pupils.
Ann ipad with a front facing camera capturing and analyzing eye movement and pupil dilation during a series of flashes and moving objects should be perfectly suitable for calculating fitness to drive.
It would work for testing whether people who may be in shock should drive too. I am pretty sure it would block most politicians from driving though. Has anyone noticed how many politicians are a bit slow to focus their eyes... as if things like sound are confusing?
Back in the day, I'd cruise down Halsted with a joint in my hand, a beer between by thighs and black beauties in my blood stream with my Ramones cassette blasting. And I never had a problem with impaired driving.
Of course, there was the time I broke an axle and sheared off the entire exhaust system on my '68 Caprice while doing donuts in the snow in the mall parking lot at 3am, but it was only because I was distracted by the fact that none of the snowflakes hitting my windshield were exactly the same.
Goddamn nanny state wants to take away my right to drive fucked up. Not that I get fucked up any more. I'm too old for that now. But every so often, just for kicks, I crank up Rocket to Russia on my mp3 player and do donuts in my mobility scooter down the paper goods aisle at the Wal-Mart.
https://youtu.be/CVQfVtzFd4U
You are welcome on my lawn.
According to my cop customers they would rather have 10 potheads rather than one drunk on the road for one simple reason...stoners tend to drive too slow and speed is what kills. I've gotten to hear what a single drunk can do on the road...it ain't pretty as they tend to fly low and with their slow reaction time? Its a bloodbath waiting to happen. The potheads? They tend to find them doing 35 in a 55 and are too paranoid about their driving to do any stunts or try to outrun the cops like the drunks will often do.
So if given the choice? I'd rather be a little late to an appointment because some pothead was driving slow than see some drunk weaving all over the road at 90 MPH + heading my way.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yeah tell it to our massive prison population.
The statistics are in, there has been a massive reduction in road fatalities in Colorado since legalizing marijuana. There is a massive hype because it is more common for there to be thc in the system of someone involved but the test indicates whether someone used marijuana within the last 30 days not whether or not they are intoxicated now.
The summary indicates AAA suggests a combination of behavioral and psychological tests. I suggest simply looking for signs of reckless driving and ticketing anyone engaging in reckless driving without regard for the underlying cause.
If you read the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, you'd know that marijuana didn't even increase the risks of crashes and fatalities.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2014 Jan; 75(1): 56â"64.
PMCID: PMC3893634
Drugs and Alcohol: Their Relative Crash Risk
Eduardo Romano, Ph.D.,a,* Pedro Torres-Saavedra, Ph.D.,b Robert B. Voas, Ph.D.,a and John H. Lacey, M.P.H.a
Abstract
Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine (a) whether among sober (blood alcohol concentration [BAC] = .00%) drivers, being drug positive increases the drivers' risk of being killed in a fatal crash; (b) whether among drinking (BAC > .00%) drivers, being drug positive increases the drivers' risk of being killed in a fatal crash; and (c) whether alcohol and other drugs interact in increasing crash risk.
Method: We compared BACs for the 2006, 2007, and 2008 crash cases drawn from the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) with control drug and blood alcohol data from participants in the 2007 U.S. National Roadside Survey. Only FARS drivers from states with drug information on 80% or more of the drivers who also participated in the 2007 National Roadside Survey were selected.
Results: For both sober and drinking drivers, being positive for a drug was found to increase the risk of being fatally injured. When the drug-positive variable was separated into marijuana and other drugs, only the latter was found to contribute significantly to crash risk. In all cases, the contribution of drugs other than alcohol to crash risk was significantly lower than that produced by alcohol.
Conclusions: Although overall, drugs contribute to crash risk regardless of the presence of alcohol, such a contribution is much lower than that by alcohol. The lower contribution of drugs other than alcohol to crash risk relative to that of alcohol suggests caution in focusing too much on drugged driving, potentially diverting scarce resources from curbing drunk driving.