Assessing the Dangers of Legalized Marijuana to Drivers
Back in 2012, Washington and Colorado made history by becoming the first two states in America to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana. On December 6, 2012, it became legal in Washington for an adult to possess marijuana, and on July 8, 2014, the state’s first retail marijuana store opened for business. Public safety, youth marijuana youth, and economic trends have been carefully watched and analyzed since these changes were implemented, especially as other states contemplate legalizing the drug as well.
According to the Director of Marijuana Law and Policy at the Drug Policy Alliance, “Marijuana prohibition has been a costly failure — to individuals, communities, and the entire country. Washington should be praised for developing a smarter, more responsible approach to marijuana.”
On July 15, one year after retail sales of marijuana in Washington began, a report was released to demonstrate the positive impacts of legalized marijuana. According to the report, low-level marijuana offenses dropped 98 percent, relieving the law enforcement and judicial system of an enormous legal and financial burden. Violent crime rates actually decreased, while Washington State enjoyed $83 million in marijuana tax revenues, most of which was used to fund abuse prevention and treatment programs, youth and adult drug education, and more.
However, controversy still continues to swirl around the legalized drug, particularly in relation to its impact on safe driving. Though the above report stated that traffic fatalities remained steady, other studies show that the number of drivers with marijuana in their systems during fatal crashes doubled last year, even though the total number of fatalities remained constant. But it has been suggested that perhaps law enforcement officers are simply testing for marijuana more than they have before, so the increasing statistics are simply revealing numbers that had been true all along.
Road safety laws are also struggling to keep up with the trend of legalized marijuana, especially because there is currently no system equivalent to the one that can determine if a driver is operating a vehicle while drunk. Science itself isn’t quite clear how to define driving while high, or how to measure it. THC, the component of marijuana that impacts brain function, can’t be measured the same as alcohol, because the same level of THC can cause varying levels of impairment in different people.
According to toxicology expert Marilyn Huestis, legalized marijuana is a “major health and drug safety issue. Cannabis affects divided attention, executive function and critical tracking. Those are all critical components to safe driving and marijuana clearly affects those.” But the Chief Government Affairs Officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving stated, “I’m not sure that drug impaired driving is going to translate into what we’ve seen with alcohol impaired driving.”
Marijuana legalization is essentially a giant social experiment, so only time will tell if its impacts on public safety warrant the intense scrutiny it has received.
