If my only experience with the drug were the first couple of times in college where we were taking bong hits, then yeah, I can see why people would be shocked that you could drive in that state. It took a me a couple of years before I discovered that most of the folks (especially the folks in their 50s - 60s I hang out with) really are just getting a little bit at a time.
It's possible (and I think for many long-term users, more normal) to have only enough to modify your mood and outlook on events without becoming glued-to-the-couch high.
Pro tip: there is also a difference between having a beer with dinner and chugging vodka shots all night long. :D
True, which points to the fact that it would be useful to have a well-understood BAC-like scale for marijuana usage, especially as the drug becomes more and more legal to use.
Clearly there's a difference between having one beer and driving an hour later compared to getting behind the wheel while nearly passed-out drunk. Lots of people have a decent approximate sense of what 0.08 BAC is when it comes to alcohol consumption, but everyone who is "high" is just "high" without some sort of well-defined scale.
That'd be tough. BAC is a meaningful metric because alcohol crosses the blood-brain barrier very easily. So, the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream is a very good predictor of the amount of alcohol acting on the brain.
THC, on the other hand, does not cross the blood-brain barrier so readily. So the problem isn't that we can't measure the amount of THC in the blood; it's that it doesn't actually tell us anything meaningful[0].
> Lots of people have a decent approximate sense of what 0.08 BAC is when it comes to alcohol consumption, but everyone who is "high" is just "high" without some sort of well-defined scale.
I actually don't think it's true that most people have an approximate sense of what .08 is. I think that most people believe they do, but most people actually have a very flawed misunderstanding of what .08 means (and doesn't mean).
You can test this out yourself! If you want to be the life of the party, buy a portable breathalyzer for about $100. When you go out, ask your friends to guess what their own BAC is (and what their friends' BAC are, based on how drunk they're acting). I bet you you'll find really large disparities between the numbers. People just aren't very good at gauging how drunk they are (or how drunk their friends are). Or, alternatively, BAC just isn't a very good measure of impairment - you can interpret this either way.
they're entirely, exponentially, infinitely different.
If I drank a six pack of beer right now I'd probably pass out, while some of the people I work with would still be able to drive quite well.
Something roughly equivalent applies to marijuana.
even if you didn't, your motor control wouldn't be nearly as impaired, nor would your mental faculty.
your judgement also wouldn't be as impaired as having a 6 pack of beer with no tolerance, making it even less likely you get behind the wheel while too intoxicated.
I'd call that a "false" equivalence, not a rough one.
I'll be honest...
What I meant to say was, talking from experience: when I smoke six bongs of straight or strong mix, there's no way I should drive a car. Mostly because I'm too busy laughing or sleeping.
Whereas last time I drank half a bottle of spirits I woke in a strange bed and could see my car out the window and had no recollection of how it got there.
Alcohol is one hell of a drug.
> Differences in study designs frequently account for inconsistencies in results between studies. Participant-selection bias and confounding factors attenuate ostensible cannabis effects, but the association with MVA often retains significance. Evidence suggests recent smoking and/or blood THC concentrations 2-5 ng/mL are associated with substantial driving impairment, particularly in occasional smokers. Future cannabis-and-driving research should emphasize challenging tasks, such as divided attention, and include occasional and chronic daily cannabis smokers.
Suggesting that taking a couple Tylenol is as dangerous as smoking anything (even tobacco for occasional users) before/while driving is ridiculous.
Here is a thought experiment. You are a passenger in a car, chained to the seat. Would you rather the driver drink shots of ethanol, smoke marijuana cigarettes, swallow antihistamine pills, or log in to Twitter/Facebook via mobile phone? Assume that you wish to minimize both risk of death and the severity of nonfatal injuries.
I assume you mean any medication which may impair you.
There are lot's of medications which people should take before driving, like anti-seizure, antipsychotics, heart control, blood sugar control, and so on.
It will typically tell you on the label if it is safe to take and operate heavy machinery. Although I'd always suggest taking it the first time while not doing so regardless, just in case of an unexpected side effect or adverse reaction.
anxiety, depression, etc...
there's some overlap here, some people use cannabis to prevent/control seizures, to treat anxiety or depression, and don't feel side effects.
The experience of the common person who has tried cannabis once or twice and turned away isn't necessarily anything like the experience of someone who benefits from it.
You wouldn't say that a person with ADHD shouldn't drive on ADHD meds, but for anyone else, that would be effectively like driving on cocaine.
Some people should, in fact, not be driving while not under the influence of cannabis or another treatment for conditions that could make them unsafe drivers.
If you drive frequently, maybe cannabis isn't a good idea for you to take to manage your anxiety, depression, or seizure control. If there's not a drug out there that helps you that does not make you a danger to others, then tough shit, you shouldn't be driving.
Driving is not a right, driving is not something everyone should be able to do. I think I would be a sub par driver, and so I don't drive. I pay more money to live in the city close to public transit. I don't say "it will probably be ok" and endanger other drivers, and this would be especially true if I actually needed pot to function.
While it is true that driving is not a right, this is an extremely narrow view. Especially in small municipalities (0-80000 people) transit is often poor and/or nonexistent, and downtown/commercial areas rarely have residences built or even nearby. Everyone relies on driving. In fact, the highschool I'm from offered free drivers ed, as a part of highschool.
Everyone has to drive and few people are sub-par drivers.
People drive impaired [alcohol, painkillers, anger, phones, passengers, weather, radio, stressors] all the time. That's not the point. The point is how much do we allow people to drive impaired. In the case of BAC, 0.05-0.08 is a common tolerance. This is not "zero," as people seem to think. Yep. You can have a beer (or two) and still be well within legal limits.
I'm not a libertarian by any means but we have very strict penalties already for people who kill others in vehicle accidents. I want to see INFORMED legislation not "i'm too scared to drive so nobody should ever do it unless they are of a perfectly clear mind and the road conditions are perfect."
Not everyone has the luxury of ordering an uber or hopping on a train for a few minutes to get home.
I think that many people are sub-par drivers, and that's why you see the horrible rates of accidents that you do today.
The point is not penalizing the behavior after it's happened, it's deterring it before it does. Informed legislation already has a situation like this -- we don't care if alcoholics have a blood alcohol of .09 and can obviously function, if they're above that level of impairment, then they are arrested for driving under the influence. It's better to be too restrictive than to lenient when it comes to potential manslaughter.
Sorry—desire? Some people may chose to live in small municipalities, some don't chose. Some are forced to by their way of life (e.g. consider the people who grow your food).
I don't live in a small municipality. I'm merely pointing out the fact that your way of life is merely one way of living and is totally ignorant of the reality of many other people's experiences.
Coincidentally they don't smoke pot and drive, because they're not inconsiderate, life endangering assholes.
My point still stands, that if you choose to take treatment that impairs your ability to drive, then you shouldn't drive. If driving is important to you, you should choose other treatment if you can. If you can't, then you shouldn't drive.
> Coincidentally they don't smoke pot and drive, because they're not inconsiderate, life endangering assholes.
Then there's a good chance that they consume liquor and get behind the wheel instead. I know a lot of farmers, and this is a pretty universal truism.
Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything but people generally don't feel compelled to uproot their lives/livelihood because someone far away is trying to tell them what's good for them. Because especially in farm communities, drinking and driving is most likely to cause endangerment to yourself, not others. Not much to hit on grid roads.
I thought it was pretty interesting actually, the big chart in the linked article suggests that stimulants actually lower the likelihood of an accident compared to a baseline.
Same with nausea suppression pills for travel. I was once made to drive after taking one.
I'd venture to say that the lower likelyhood of an accident while on cocaine would come from most people that not pay any goddamn attention to anything, frantically scanning everything: the road, traffic, road shoulder, pedestrains, etc, etc
Source: I've been taking methamphetamine (prescribed) for ADHD for quite some time. I experienced a little euphoria the first week when I initially started treatment on amphetamines but it was nothing even close to what I would consider impairment.
- When you're tired, you can have a cup of coffee and wake up a bit and regain some of that focus. You can't drink a red bull and suddenly be way less high.
- If you send a text or two while driving, you're not paying attention to the road for a few moments (which is admittedly still crazy dangerous). If you drive stoned - you're driving less safely the entire time you're driving. The combination of the two is even worse.
- Having a heart condition doesn't mean you're going to necessarily have a heart attack every time you drive - there's just a higher risk that something might happen. Even in that case, you may be able to stop/pull over. Once again, if you drive stoned - you're driving less safely the entire time you're driving.
- You can have a backup pair of glasses, you can pull over, etc.
But my main point - just because there are other things that can make the already insanely dangerous activity of driving more risky, doesn't make driving high less bad.
Actually, there are terpenes in cannabis that mitigate many of the confusing effects, which can be found in foods such as black peppercorns and pine nuts. Pliny the Elder wrote about this; see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3165946/ So yes, there are ways to get "less high."
Not advocating that driving while high/texting/tired is a good idea, just trying to enlighten about some of the fascinating science behind Cannabis.
The question becomes what's Stoned? Detectable is not a reasonable limit nor is can't stand up.
Unfortunately, even 0.04 can get you arrested in California.
The BAC limit is simply when the DMV automatically pulls your license. You can be convicted of DWI/DUI at any BAC in California.
Now, you aren't likely to get pulled over at BAC less than 0.05, but if you do get pulled over, you can still get convicted for it.
I think an actual blood test is the only thing we got for MJ. That's invasive, and not likely something officers will be able to do at a traffic stop.
Not sure how you come to that conclusion. I think it's reasonable to assume it's legal because most people (including me) feel it's fine. I'm much more concerned about distracted driving generally.
Something to remember is people generally drink late in the day. So, the accident statistics mix drinking and tired data. Tired driving makes things far worse, but it's hard to test for as accidents and being pulled over both tend to wake people up. Pot on the other hand is more often a daytime drug which is going to mess with the statistics.
What??
"And after adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, drivers who tested positive for marijuana were no more likely to crash than who had not used any drugs or alcohol prior to driving."
Edit: Just in case in the future anyone comes across my comment out of context of this thread, I'd like to add that without seeing further research I'm not personally convinced by that statement.
The study linked in the article confirms that yes, according to the evidence seen, marijuana significantly impairs driving ability, especially among casual users (to the surprise of no one whose actually used it I'm sure).
And after adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, drivers who tested positive for marijuana were no more likely to crash than who had not used any drugs or alcohol prior to driving.
Have you taken Dramamine (the regular drowsy version)? If I take 1 pill I can sort of keep awake but I wouldn't try to drive unless it was an emergency. Taking 2 pills makes me so drowsy that I would not drive safely by any chance.
Those are the recommended dosages by the way, so no need to consume the whole bottle or box of that like with cough syrup. And that's just one of the myriad of different things you can get over the counter that can easily impair your driving.
So yes, I think the analogy is right to a degree (like all analogies). Even though marijuana does definitely change the way you perceive things and thus driving might not be something recommended to do, the GP's point is that a lot of people already drive under the influence of a lot of other substances, some of them potentially much more dangerous than marijuana.
Obviously part of the problem is that different people will react differently to marijuana, so like stated elsewhere in the thread, a regular user (like a functional alcoholic) might be able to drive "ok" and have no accidents but someone that is trying it for the first time, getting a particularly potent batch and then trying to drive is going to increase the chances of an accident greatly.
That doesn't mean I condone being fucked up (with whatever) and driving, but the GP has a point in that we are already living in a world where people are driving and doing other dangerous things while under the influence of "stuff". That also explains partly why driving is so dangerous and why so many people die each year from a driving-related incident.
Edit: So maybe we shouldn't be single-ing out marijuana as "the" bad stuff that causes accidents while behind the wheel and take a more "big-picture" kind of view. One of the reasons why self-driving cars are a good idea.
I think it's safe to assume you drive very often with things that affect your driving. If pot is proven to not affect your driving to a measurable degree, then the only thing that is different between that and random over the counter medication is one is called pot.