"Fatal Road Crashes Involving Marijuana Double After State Legalizes Drug"

[Sastank]

Meanwhile alcohol is legal and is responsible for more deaths/accidents than weed ever will be lol.

[Dezerte]

Did actual fatalities increase? Or just the ratio of drivers with traces of marijuana in their system? The former would be a strong argument for regulating marijuana, while the latter is not at all.

[urasim]

Doubles after you make something legal. You having issues understanding that?

I was looking for stats, genius.

Like Sydänyö said. Did the number of people in fatal car crashes drastically increase, or did the number of people remain somewhat static but more people also tested with weed in their system?

I can see the defenders of weed saying other things caused it, but then they would have to come up with something else which changed at the same time or close to when they made weed legal.

Alcohol and weed is a very popular combo... Among other things. To hand-wave it away shows your bias. I'm looking for an unbiased stats based answer here. Something scientific to bad the findings.

A little less bias, please.

[boyzma]

And here in Oregon where it is also legal, I have heard of 2....count them 2 fatal accidents where they say pot was the major factor. Seeing this news last night I also noticed that like 77% of those accidents also cited alcohol use as contributing factor. So hey let's all approve of the use of alcohol and kill thousands and then decide pot is evil because a few drunks decided to get high and drunk and drive.....logic.

[Ghostpanther]

This is wrong every which way:

1) The article says accidents involving marijuana have doubled- not overall number of traffic accidents.

2) It's not currently possible to determine marijuana impairment levels at the time of an accident, the test can show positive up to one month after use- so that joint you smoked last Tuesday can flag you after the accident that Saturday.

3) There's plenty of causes for traffic accidents, not like the streets were a utopia free from incident before legalization.

Yeah I see that now from reading the actual article. Thanks for clarifying.

[Melkandor]

Meanwhile alcohol is legal and is responsible for more deaths/accidents than weed ever will be lol.

Lol no kidding. But some of these people who have never tried it claim that it's worse than crack-cocaine and alcohol.

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And here in Oregon where it is also legal, I have heard of 2....count them 2 fatal accidents where they say pot was the major factor. Seeing this news last night I also noticed that like 77% of those accidents also cited alcohol use as contributing factor. So hey let's all approve of the use of alcohol and kill thousands and then decide pot is evil because a few drunks decided to get high and drunk and drive.....logic.

Logic means nothing to the "Say NO to drugs" brigade

[Ghostpanther]

I was looking for stats, genius.

Like Sydänyö said. Did the number of people in fatal car crashes drastically increase, or did the number of people remain somewhat static but more people also tested with weed in their system?

Read the article. Which I had not did at first and assumed too much.

[Malachi256]

Did actual fatalities increase? Or just the ratio of drivers with traces of marijuana in their system? The former would be a strong argument for regulating marijuana, while the latter is not at all.

I'm having trouble finding good recent data on car related fatalities, still working on it, though.

This article seems to address the "leftover THC in their system" argument.

However, just testing positive for marijuana doesn’t necessarily indicate if a driver was actually affected by the drug at the time of the crash since marijuana can be detected in a person’s blood for days (possibly weeks) after a person uses the drug. This new data is able to distinguish between drivers who test positive for THC, the impairing substance in marijuana and those who have residual marijuana in their system from prior use which may have occurred days ago.

The number of drivers testing positive for active THC increased, from 65 percent (38 of 60 drivers) in 2013 to an alarming 85 percent (75 of 89 drivers) in 2014.

[RenegadeXan]

After reading the article, it should be the same principle set for alcohol - there should be a legalized limit, each person reacting differently is a null point as the same applies with alcohol, and yet there is still a limit set.

Taking any sort of drug (yes even prescribed ones) or alcohol and getting behind the wheel of a car is stupid and selfish of that person, accidents are fatailities are a high risk in these situations and it needs controlling, regardless of its legal status.

Well then i say no one on most meds should drive because that shit seriously impact your abilities.

[Rukh]

Did actual fatalities increase? Or just the ratio of drivers with traces of marijuana in their system? The former would be a strong argument for regulating marijuana, while the latter is not at all.

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

I guess it went in to affect 2012? It looks like accidents were up very slightly in 2012, but then came down again and are on the same average since 2009. I don't think it's a significant enough increase to attribute it to any major change.

What's even more interesting is what happened in 2008/2009. Accident rates dropped drastically over tha ttime period, by about 25% and have remained at the new level.

With respect to the main article, I don't think we can gather that intoxication is causing more people to have accidents, just that more people smoke weed.

[Melkandor]

Well then i say no one on most meds should drive because that shit seriously impact your abilities.

They shouldn't, yet they still do, and yes they have laws against it

[Malachi256]

Well then i say no one on most meds should drive because that shit seriously impact your abilities.

Turns out most meds that have any effect on your CNS have exactly that warning on them.

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http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

TY, that's the site we need =)

According to their data, the legalization of marijuana is correlated with a small uptick in car fatalities, reversing a general downtrend that had been going for years.

[RenegadeXan]

Turns out most meds that have any effect on your CNS have exactly that warning on them.

I don't mean just your typical anxiety meds like xanax and stuff, I mean literally almost everything from psychiatric meds to anti spasms like for Parkinson. Those drugs really makes you feel so out of it and fucked up and last much longer in your system then pot or alcohol would.

Sometimes I wonder how the people in med school learn of these drugs, they understand what they do on paper but I dont think they quite understand how strong these shits really are, you dont really know until you've tried them. I mean I've done my fare share of reactive drugs and until i tried those meds I didn't understand how fucked up they could make you, although its probably also because my body is a weak piece of rotting crap and I can't even do any drugs like alcohol or pot without getting severely fucked up anymore, in a badtrip way.

[Pipebomb]

When living in a free society you're going to have to accept a certain level of risk and that means that bad things may happen on occasion. We shouldn't use individual tragic events to take away more of our freedom.

That being said, don't use drugs and drive.

[Rukh]

Turns out most meds that have any effect on your CNS have exactly that warning on them.

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TY, that's the site we need =)

According to their data, the legalization of marijuana is correlated with a small uptick in car fatalities, reversing a general downtrend that had been going for years.

Actually I found a better one:

https://rsc.wa.gov.au/Statistics-Research

Its specifically only for Washington and shows even less change in overall fatality rates.

[Malachi256]

Actually I found a better one:

https://rsc.wa.gov.au/Statistics-Research

Its specifically only for Washington and shows even less change in overall fatality rates.

The first one you linked has state data - check my link.

And your new one is Western Australia (WA), not Washington state.

[Rukh]

The first one you linked has state data - check my link.

And your new one is Western Australia (WA), not Washington state.

Wow I think I need another cup of coffee before going to work XD

Regardless! The point is there hasn't been any significant increase in fatal crashes.

[Malachi256]

Wow I think I need another cup of coffee before going to work XD

Regardless! The point is there hasn't been any significant increase in fatal crashes.

Okay, I'll just repost what I just said above,

According to their data, the legalization of marijuana is correlated with a small uptick in car fatalities, reversing a general downtrend that had been going for years.

[Espe]

When living in a free society you're going to have to accept a certain level of risk and that means that bad things may happen on occasion. We shouldn't use individual tragic events to take away more of our freedom.

That being said, don't use drugs and drive.

Yep, we definitely don't need anymore fearmongering from the war on drugs cheerleaders, we've lived with the consequences of their ignorance long enough in the US: for-proifit prisons, rampant heroin and methamphetamine use are just a few of them.

I think we as a country can do better than bow to the greed of a few at the expense of the many. It's just sad that their propaganda has been so effective at manipulating the weak-minded and delusional.

[Rukh]

Okay, I'll just repost what I just said above,

According to their data, the legalization of marijuana is correlated with a small uptick in car fatalities, reversing a general downtrend that had been going for years.

I don't think that's a big enough difference you could conclude that its reversed anything. It was legal at the end of 2012. It continued to go down for 2013 overall and is 26 people higher for 2014. That's ~5% difference. Between plenty of years the rate of deaths have been different. In Texas, 149 more people died in 2014 than 2013, again a bit under a 5% difference, but they didn't legalize weed.

My point is, that's not a large enough difference that you could attribute to any sort of significant change. Alaska saw an increase of 43% over the previous year! That's just because their number is already small enough that it swings drastically.

I think in general all states went up for 2014. Possibly more people are out driving due to low gas prices or something.