[quote]AllerCuzine wrote:
You know I say that is true that I am being broad but just as you are your damn right there has been plenty of accidents becasue of weed I know more people who drive high, work high go to school high and frankly live their lives high because they say that it doesnt affect them the same way.
[/quote]
Not really… I’m not saying it’s okay to drive high, I’m just stating it is not that dangerous.
I am assuming you meant to say weed causes a lot of accidents… I said weed does not cause that many…
STUDY FINDS CANNABIS NOT CAUSE OF AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENTS
The AGE pA5, CANBERRA TIMES p4, 21 October 1998
The largest study ever done linking road accidents with drugs and alcohol has found drivers with cannabis in their blood were no more at risk than those who were drug-free.
In fact, the findings by a pharmacology team from the University of Adelaide and Transport SA showed drivers who had smoked marijuana were marginally less likely to have an accident than those who were drug-free.
A study spokesman, Dr Jason White, said the difference was not great enough to be statistically significant but could be explained by anecdotal evidence that marijuana smokers were more cautious and drove more slowly because of altered time perception.
The study of 2,500 accidents, which matched the blood alcohol levels of injured drivers with details from police reports, found drug-free drivers caused the accidents in 53.5 per cent of cases.
Injured drivers with a blood-alcohol concentration of more than 0.05 per cent were culpable in nearly 90 per cent of accidents they were involved in. Drivers with cannabis in their blood were less likely to cause an accident, with a culpability rate of 50.6 per cent.
The study has policy implications for those who argue drug detection should be a new focus for road safety. Dr White said the study showed the importance of concentrating efforts on alcohol rather than other drugs.
Report finds dope doesn’t drastically impair driving
ABC News Online 14 Oct 1998
A report has found marijuana use has little or no effect on the cause of car accidents.
A study funded by the South Australian and Federal Governments involved blood testing 2,500 drivers injured in such accidents.
The report has been released at a forensic science symposium in Adelaide.
But, one of the authors, Jason White from Adelaide University, says he is not suggesting it is alright for people to smoke and drive.
“I don’t know if they’re better drivers but they don’t seem to contribute in a major way to road accidents in the manner that alcohol does,” he said.
"We have shown, as other people have, that alcohol has a huge effect on driving in impairing driving.
"We don’t find the same effect with cannabis.
“Whether it’s that people compensate for any impairment caused by cannabis, or they simply don’t drive when they are markedly under the influence, we don’t know. But there is certainly not the effect that alcohol has.”
He says the study which was released in May, has been kept under wraps until now, because of fears the public could get the wrong message from the finding.
Marijuana report ‘too hot to handle’
ABC News Online 14 Oct 1998
A report has found marijuana use has little or no effect on the cause of car accidents.
However, the study has been kept under wraps until now because of fears the public could get the wrong message from the finding.
The Forensic science report commisisoned by the South Australian and Federal Governments tested the blood of 2,500 drivers injured in car accidents.
The report found that marijuana use played very little part while reinforcing the dangers of drink driving.
But it seems the report has been too hot to handle. The New South Wales Government has made it difficult to obtain since its May release perhaps fearing that drivers may get the wrong idea.
But co-author Jason White says the report does not say that it is okay to smoke and drive.
2 Apr 1998
DRIVING - One in five drivers injured in road accidents in South Australia have drugs in their system, a State Government report has revealed (Advertiser 2 March p7).
Prepared by the SA Office of Road Safety, it shows more than 20 per cent of injured drivers have cannabis, stimulants or tranquillisers in their blood - compared to 8.5 per cent with alcohol.
The rpeort, based on blood tests of 1795 injured drivers admitted to hospitals across the State in 1995 and 1996, found:
- 10.4 per cent of men had alcohol in their blood compared with 3.5 per cent of women
- 12.6 per cent of men had cannabis in their blood compared with 6.3 per cent of women
- 6.3 per cent of women had tranquillisers (benzodiazapine) in their blood compared with 3.8 per cent of men
- 6.3 per cent of women had stimulants in their blood compared to 4.5 per cent of men.
Twenty two per cent of injured motorcyclists had cannabis in their blood.
Drug Testing of Motorists
HERALD SUN p13, The AGE pA2, 19 February 1998
Proposed Victorian Government legislation to allow police to take blood and urine samples from motorists suspected of drug use faces objections from doctors and civil libertarians.
Under legislation which is due to go before Parliament in this session, police could force drivers to undergo a roadside impairment test. If necessary, they could then seek blood and urine samples to analyse the presence of drugs.
A New offence called “driving while impaired” will be made law when parliament formally adopts a report of the Victorian Road Safety Committee. However, Australian Medical Association State president Gerald Segal said people reacted to different drugs in different ways and “Science has not found an objective threshold of impairment using blood and urine levels”.
Liberty Victoria’s Dr Jane Hendtlass said blood and urine tests were too invasive, especially when there was no correlation between drug levels and driving impairment.
Crash Characteristics and Injuries of Victims Impaired by Alcohol vs. Illicit Drugs
From Accident Analysis and Prevention, Volume 29, Number 6, November 1997.
Researchers studied blood samples from 894 patients admitted to two emergency rooms with injuries from automobile crashes. The presence of alcohol in blood was associated with more severe injury than in the case of patients who were alcohol and drug free.
Patients who had other drugs in their blood (including marijuana AND opiates and cocaine) without alcohol showed injuries no worse on average than patients who had no alcohol and no drugs.
…“When other relevant variables were considered, these (everything besides alcohol) drugs were not associated with more severe crashes or greater injury.”
The title of the article is Crash Characteristics and Injuries of Victims Impaired by Alcohol vs. Illicit Drugs. The study was sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The main author is Pat Waller of UMTRI, the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
ANTI-ANXIETY DRUGS LINKED TO INCREASE IN CAR CRASHES
Associated Press, 1997.
LONDON (AP) – Drivers taking commonly prescribed anti-anxiety drugs, such as Valium, are more than twice as likely to be involved in traffic accidents as those not taking the drugs, a new study says.
The risk of accidents for people under the age of 45 is more than three times as great for those who take the drugs, according to the research, published in today’s edition of the British medical journal The Lancet.
“The current warnings are that if you feel drowsy, don’t drive. That needs to be changed,” said Dr. Tom MacDonald, a clinical pharmacologist from the University of Dundee in Scotland who led the study.
“I would say: If you use these drugs, don’t drive.”
Thousands of lives could be saved worldwide every year, and hundreds of thousands of traffic accidents avoided, if people who use such drugs did not drive while on medication, the researchers said.
Tranquillizers such as Valium, the drug generically known as diazepam, are commonly used to treat anxiety, other stress-related disorders and muscle spasms.
They are the most commonly prescribed type of tranquilizers, with 18 million prescriptions in Britain alone in 1997.
Worldwide figures were not available.
http://www.norml.org.nz/Marijuana/Driving.htm