{"id":14318,"date":"2018-02-19T20:29:49","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T20:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=14318"},"modified":"2018-05-10T19:26:10","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T19:26:10","slug":"report-marijuana-increases-the-risk-of-deadly-crashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2018\/02\/report-marijuana-increases-the-risk-of-deadly-crashes\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Marijuana Increases The Risk Of Deadly Crashes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">WASHINGTON \u2014 A new report out from the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ghsa.org\/\">Governors Highway Safety Association<\/a>\u00a0finds that driving while on drugs, even marijuana, poses a significant safety risk on our roadways, on par with drunken driving.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">Researchers found that the percentage of drivers killed who tested positive for drugs is almost the same as those who tested positive for any alcohol \u2014\u00a040 percent.\u00a0 More than 5,000 drivers killed each year have drugs in their system at the time of the crash.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">\u201cThe proportion with drugs in their system has increased over the past several years and now the level is about the same with alcohol in their systems,\u201d says Dr. Jim Hedlund, author of the report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">The report puts a special emphasis on marijuana use and its impact on driving because lawmakers across the country are debating whether to legalize the drug.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">\u201cThe evidence is very clear that marijuana affects decision times, reaction times and so forth.\u00a0 If you are using marijuana, you are at an increased risk of being in a crash,\u201d says Hedlund.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">He is particularly concerned that lawmakers are not considering the impact of marijuana on deadly crashes when talking about legalizing the drug.\u00a0 Hedlund also says the laws on the books for drug-impaired driving need to be clearer and more in line with drunken driving laws.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">\u201cEvery state must take steps to reduce drug-impaired driving, regardless of the legal status of marijuana,\u201d says Jonathan Adkins, executive director of GHSA.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">\u201cThis is the first report to provide states and other stakeholders with the information that they need.\u00a0 And we encourage [the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration]\u00a0to issue guidance on best practices to prevent marijuana-impaired driving.\u00a0 We look to the federal government to take a leadership role in this issue similar to that of drunk driving and seat belt use,\u201d he adds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">The report calls on states to take several measures to address the issue head-on.\u00a0 It urges states to assess the data in their region, examine and update drug-impaired driving laws, test all drivers who are killed in a crash for drugs and separate statistics between drunken driving from driving while on drugs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt\">Source:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ghsa.org\/\">Governors Highway Safety Association<\/a>\u00a0 Sept.2015<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 A new report out from the\u00a0Governors Highway Safety Association\u00a0finds that driving while on drugs, even marijuana, poses a significant safety risk on our roadways, on par with drunken driving. Researchers found that the percentage of drivers killed who tested positive for drugs is almost the same as those who tested positive for any [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,65,90,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-drugs-and-accidents","category-global-drug-legalisation-efforts","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14318","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=14318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}