Pot Fuels Surge in Drugged Driving Deaths

[lostinblue 1,989]

Pot Fuels Surge in Drugged Driving Deaths

uring each shift at her drive-through window, once an hour, Cordelia Cordova sees people rolling joints in their cars. Some blow smoke in her face and smile.

Cordova, who lost a 23-year-old niece and her 1-month-old son to a driver who admitted he smoked pot that day, never smiles back. She thinks legal marijuana in Colorado, where she works, is making the problem of drugged driving worse — and now new research supports her claim.

"Nobody hides it anymore when driving," Cordova said. "They think it's a joke because it’s legal. Nobody will take this seriously until somebody loses another loved one."

As medical marijuana sales expanded into 20 states, legal weed was detected in the bodies of dead drivers three times more often during 2010 when compared to those who died behind the wheel in 1999, according to a new study from Columbia University published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

“The trend suggests that marijuana is playing an increased role in fatal crashes,” said Dr. Guohua Li, a co-author and director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia University Medical Center. The researchers examined data from the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), spanning more than 23,000 drivers killed during that 11-year period.

"Nobody will take this seriously until somebody loses another loved one."

Alcohol remains, by far, the most common mind-altering substance detected in dead drivers, observed in the blood of nearly 40 percent of those who perished across six states during 2010, the Columbia study notes. (That rate remained stable between 1999 and 2010.)

Cannabinol, a remnant of marijuana, was found in 12.2 percent of those deceased drivers during 2010, (up from 4.2 percent in 1999). Pot was the most common non-alcoholic drug detected by those toxicology screenings.

“The increased availability of marijuana and increased acceptance of marijuana use” are fueling the higher rate of cannabinol found in dead drivers, Li told NBC News.

Researchers limited their analysis to California and five others states where toxicology screenings are routinely conducted within an hour of a traffic death. They note that California allowed medical marijuana in 2004. Since then, California has posted “marked increases in driver fatalities testing positive for marijuana,” Li said.

"The number of deaths will grow," Cordova said. "I'm scared."

Minutes after the crash that killed Cordova's niece, Tanya Guevara, and Guevara's 5-week-old son, police arrested the driver who struck Guevara's car. Steven Ryan, then 22, admitted to smoking pot earlier that day, according to court records. Ryan later pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012.

Courtesy Cordelia Cordova

Tanya Guevara and her son, Adrian, were killed in 2010 when a driver, impaired after smoking marijuana, hit Guevara’s car head-on in Colorado.

That same year, Cordova testified before Colorado lawmakers about a proposed impairment limit for stoned drivers. Under Colorado law today, drivers who test positive for 5 nanograms per milliliter of THC — an active ingredient in marijuana — can be charged and punished as drunk drivers.

That law has not, however, led Howard Myers to feel safer on local roads. He, too, takes the issue personally: In 2002, his three children were seriously injured when their car was struck by a driver who, Myers said, had smoked marijuana a short time earlier. (A police record provided by Myers showed that oncoming driver was charged with vehicular assault). Myers' children were returning from school to their home near Colorado Springs.

All three now are adults and their injuries have become chronic, Myers said. His daughter, who was driving, receives physical therapy for neck and back pain. One of his sons is recovering from a traumatic brain injury. Another son had a leg partially amputated.

"The attitude here is it's safe," Myers said. "So more people are driving under the influence.”

“If the current trends continue, non-alcohol drugs, such as marijuana, will overtake alcohol in traffic fatalities around 2020.”

But marijuana can be detected in the blood for one week after consumption, perhaps leading chronic consumers to be wrongly arrested, critics of the law assert.

A separate study — also based on FARS data — found that in states where medical marijuana was approved, traffic fatalities decrease by as much as 11 percent during the first year after legalization. Written by researchers at the University of Colorado, Oregon and Montana State University, the paper was published in 2013 in the Journal of Law & Economics.

Those authors theorized pot, for some, becomes a substitute for alcohol. They cited a recent, 13-percent drop in drunk-driving deaths in states where medical marijuana is legal.

“Marijuana reform is associated with … a decrease in traffic fatalities, most likely due to its impact on alcohol consumption,” said Michael Elliott, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, a trade association in Colorado.

Overall, though, drugged driving is closing the gap with drunk driving.

The rate of traffic deaths in which drivers tested positive for non-alcohol drugs climbed from 16.6 percent in 1999 to 28.3 percent in 2010, according to the Columbia study.

Among dead male drivers, 4.0 tested positive for narcotics in 2010, up from 2.2 percent in 1999. Among female drivers killed, 7.6 percent tested positive for narcotics, up from 4.3 percent.

“If the current trends continue,” Li said, “non-alcohol drugs, such as marijuana, will overtake alcohol in traffic fatalities around 2020.”

First published February 15th 2014, 1:58 pm

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/pot-fuels-surge-drugged-driving-deaths-n22991

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Driving while impaired is a bad thing no matter what the choice is, drugs or alcohol. Legal, prescription or illegal. I think that driving while impaired laws should be strictly enforced.

[GandD 5,966]

No one suggesting Pot should be legalized is suggesting that operating a vehicle while high should be legal.

[lostinblue 1,989]

No one suggesting Pot should be legalized is suggesting that operating a vehicle while high should be legal.

But making it legal to smoke will encourage people to drive while high. .... Take an 8 hour drive in a northern winter. The passengers use it with the windows rolled up.. The driver would NOT be affected?... IF it would save the life of one child would it be worth it not to legalize this drug. (this is what we heard in dealing with the gun debate)

• Obama: If we can 'save even one child'
• Now under the law Illinois medical marijuana patients would have to be fingerprinted, undergo ... they would also give up their Second Amendment right to own a gun. ..
• Perhaps we should also include if you use pot you loose the privilege to drive. They seem to think it is this dangerous ,,,Too dangerous to be around a firearm. Then why put someone behind the wheel.

[GandD 5,966]

But making it legal to smoke will encourage people to drive while high. .... Take an 8 hour drive in a northern winter. The passengers use it with the windows rolled up.. The driver would NOT be affected?... IF it would save the life of one child would it be worth it not to legalize this drug. (this is what we heard in dealing with the gun debate)

• Obama: If we can 'save even one child'
• Now under the law Illinois medical marijuana patients would have to be fingerprinted, undergo ... they would also give up their Second Amendment right to own a gun. ..
• Perhaps we should also include if you use pot you loose the privilege to drive. They seem to think it is this dangerous ,,,Too dangerous to be around a firearm. Then why put someone behind the wheel.

Couldn't this exact argument be used with gun laws?

As for this:

"Perhaps we should also include if you use pot you loose the privilege to drive."

We don't do this with alcohol now so I would say as long as one is not currently high, they should be safe to drive. You DO touch on another good point about "contact highs" I would agree that pot should not be allowed to be smoked in a car period, whether or not the one smoking is the one driving.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Now under the law Illinois medical marijuana patients would have to be fingerprinted, undergo ... they would also give up their Second Amendment right to own a gun. ..

he Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent out a memo last week clarifying their stance that a sportsman with a shotgun and a medical marijuana card is no different than a cocaine dealer with a silenced TEC-9.

The letter, sent to federal firearm licensees and gun shops in medical marijuana states on September 21, makes it clear that federal law prohibits someone who is an "unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" to purchase or own a gun. And since state medical marijuana laws mean nothing to the federal government, any state-legal medical marijuana patient who owns a firearm is breaking federal law.

It is also illegal to sell a firearm to someone who is a "user" of illicit drugs, and things like firearm background checks and concealed handgun permits all have a check box on their forms asking if you use drugs. If a medical marijuana patient checks yes, then they aren't able to purchase or carry a gun. If they answer no, then they are lying in the eyes of the feds and could face prosecution.

Never mind that whole Second Amendment thing: Violating this law carries mandatory minimum sentences of five-to-ten years depending on the circumstances and mood of the judge and prosecuting attorneys

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/09/medical_marijuana_guns_prison_atf.php

This should be applied to the privilege to drive. ? They are demanding you loose your 2nd for any pot use.

[GandD 5,966]

Now under the law Illinois medical marijuana patients would have to be fingerprinted, undergo ... they would also give up their Second Amendment right to own a gun. ..

he Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent out a memo last week clarifying their stance that a sportsman with a shotgun and a medical marijuana card is no different than a cocaine dealer with a silenced TEC-9.

The letter, sent to federal firearm licensees and gun shops in medical marijuana states on September 21, makes it clear that federal law prohibits someone who is an "unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" to purchase or own a gun. And since state medical marijuana laws mean nothing to the federal government, any state-legal medical marijuana patient who owns a firearm is breaking federal law.

It is also illegal to sell a firearm to someone who is a "user" of illicit drugs, and things like firearm background checks and concealed handgun permits all have a check box on their forms asking if you use drugs. If a medical marijuana patient checks yes, then they aren't able to purchase or carry a gun. If they answer no, then they are lying in the eyes of the feds and could face prosecution.

Never mind that whole Second Amendment thing: Violating this law carries mandatory minimum sentences of five-to-ten years depending on the circumstances and mood of the judge and prosecuting attorneys

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/09/medical_marijuana_guns_prison_atf.php

This should be applied to the privilege to drive. ? They are demanding you loose your 2nd for any pot use.

People should not have to give up their right to something if they are obeying the law. Is this the stipulation in any state where Marijuana has been decriminalized? Or only states that consider it or other "legal drugs" not legal outside of prescription?

[Penny Lane 8,159]

Why should people who smoke weed lose their privilege to drive? Do people who drink (but don't get behind the wheel) have to follow that same rule? Looks like we'll be taking a lot of people off the road.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Why should people who smoke weed lose their privilege to drive? Do people who drink (but don't get behind the wheel) have to follow that same rule? Looks like we'll be taking a lot of people off the road.

Head racist here

I am for taking them off the road..I don't smoke so it does not affect me . .. If it will save the life of one child would it not be worth it.... That is what the anti gun people say about an AR 15.. The same people who don't own a gun so it would not affect them.

How about this if caught with pot in your system (while driving) then you loose all driving rights.forever and match the time behind bars ( for gun ownership and pot). ... 5 years or so.

[Penny Lane 8,159]

Head racist here

I am for taking them off the road..I don't smoke so it does not affect me . .. If it will save the life of one child would it not be worth it.... That is what the anti gun people say about an AR 15.. The same people who don't own a gun so it would not affect them.

How about this if caught with pot in your system (while driving) then you loose all driving rights.forever and match the time behind bars ( for gun ownership and pot). ... 5 years or so.

Go figure, a post that starts with "head racist here" ends up not making any sense.

[GandD 5,966]

Head racist here

I am for taking them off the road..I don't smoke so it does not affect me . .. If it will save the life of one child would it not be worth it.... That is what the anti gun people say about an AR 15.. The same people who don't own a gun so it would not affect them.

How about this if caught with pot in your system (while driving) then you loose all driving rights.forever and match the time behind bars ( for gun ownership and pot). ... 5 years or so.

So, you're using the very argument you disagree with liberals using against assault rifles?

How about if caught with pot in your system, you get a DUI?

[lostinblue 1,989]

Go figure, a post that starts with "head racist here" ends up not making any sense.

Head racist here

Medical pot is legal but you loose your ability to own a gun forever. The same should be applied if you drive and have it in your system. .... Loose the ability to drive forever.

[GandD 5,966]

Head racist here

Medical pot is legal but you loose your ability to own a gun forever. The same should be applied if you drive and have it in your system. .... Loose the ability to drive forever.

One state is attempting to do that. SOMEONE will be along in a few months to gloat at a ruling making this unconstitutional anyway.

[lostinblue 1,989]

So, you're using the very argument you disagree with liberals using against assault rifles?

How about if caught with pot in your system, you get a DUI?

I am using the same argument yes.... use drugs and they take away you 2nd.....I am saying apply the same standard for someone that gets behind the wheel and drive. while stoned. .... Both can kill correct?

It has been said that pot does no harm but this article says otherwise. If I drink and own a gun I do not loose that 2nd. unless it is a felony DWI....According to the law if I smoke a joint this afternoon I can loose my 2nd forever. The same standard should be across the board. Loose the privilege to drive also. .. That is a dangerous weapon. also.

[Penny Lane 8,159]

Head racist here

Medical pot is legal but you loose your ability to own a gun forever. The same should be applied if you drive and have it in your system. .... Loose the ability to drive forever.

If you're going to continue with these rants, I'll help you out. It's lose. Not loose.