{"id":14274,"date":"2018-02-12T20:01:18","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T20:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=14274"},"modified":"2018-05-10T19:23:00","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T19:23:00","slug":"drugged-driving-a-growing-problem-report-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2018\/02\/drugged-driving-a-growing-problem-report-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Drugged Driving A Growing Problem, Report Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/a-5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-14283\" src=\"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/a-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">The percentage of drivers testing positive for marijuana or other illegal drugs is increasing, according to a new report. In 2013 and 2014, 15.1 percent of drivers tested positive for drugs, up from 12.4 percent in 2007.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">The findings come from the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ghsa.org\/html\/media\/pressreleases\/2015\/20150930drugged.html\">Governors Highway Safety Association<\/a>. The group found 38 percent of people who died in auto accidents in 2013 and were tested had detectable levels of potentially impairing drugs \u2013 both legal and illegal \u2013 in their system. That percentage is almost the same as those testing positive for alcohol,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2015\/10\/01\/health\/drugged-driving\/index.html\">CNN<\/a>\u00a0reports.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">The most common drugs detected were marijuana (34.7 percent) and amphetamines (9.7 percent), which includes nasal decongestants and drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">\u201cAlcohol-impaired driving is still a big deal, but we have paid more attention to it than to drug-impaired driving and it\u2019s time to pay more attention to drug-impaired driving,\u201d said report author James Hedlund. He notes drunk driving has been decreasing as drugged driving increases.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">He noted one reason for the rise in drugged driving could be that \u201cmarijuana use is increasing, driven in parts by the states that legalized marijuana for medicinal and recreational use, and the second is that prescription painkiller use has gone up substantially.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">The report found 6.9 percent of people killed in auto accidents had hydrocodone in their system, while 3.6 percent had detectable levels of oxycodone, 4.5 percent had benzodiazepines (found in anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs), and 4.5 percent had cocaine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">\u201cAlcohol is the deadliest drug we have by practically any metric\u2026and alcohol in combination with [marijuana] is particularly malignant,\u201d Dr. Gary Reisfield, professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida, told CNN.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">The report recommends that states train law enforcement officers to recognize the physical and behavioral signs associated with different substances.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">Source:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.drugfree.org\">www.drugfree.org<\/a> 1<sup>st<\/sup> October 2015<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The percentage of drivers testing positive for marijuana or other illegal drugs is increasing, according to a new report. In 2013 and 2014, 15.1 percent of drivers tested positive for drugs, up from 12.4 percent in 2007. The findings come from the\u00a0Governors Highway Safety Association. The group found 38 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,65,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-drugs-and-accidents","category-global-drug-legalisation-efforts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}