Tag Archives: Chicago Tribune

Driving, Editorial, Uncategorized

Legal Marijuana Is Making Roads Deadlier

Cannabis-related traffic fatalities are a threat to public safety. Governments need to get serious.

By the Bloomberg News Editorial Board,   April 4, 2024

Marijuana legalization is killing a lot of people. Not slowly — though some studies suggest that it may be doing that, too — but quickly, in car crashes. It’s one more symptom of the disastrous rush by lawmakers to capitalize on cannabis sales without doing the work needed to keep the public safe. 

In Canada, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2018, one study found a 475% increase in emergency-room visits for cannabis-related crashes in Ontario between 2010 and 2021. Many more cases likely went undetected, owing to a dearth of reliable testing for driving while high. 

In the US, the proportion of motor-vehicle fatalities involving cannabis use soared to 21.5% in 2018, up from 9% in 2000. One analysis found a 10% increase in vehicular deaths, on average, following legalization by states. In California, the increase was 14%; in Oregon, it was 22%. 

This suggests that more than 1,000 Americans could be dying annually because of marijuana-related accidents — and that’s just in states where legalization has occurred. Given the ease of transporting the drug across state lines, the real number could be far higher. 

The cause of these deaths isn’t just the drug itself. It’s ignorance. A recent study found that about half of marijuana users thought they were OK to drive 90 minutes after inhaling or ingesting the drug, yet their driving performance in a simulated vehicle was as bad as it had been after 30 minutes. Evidence suggests people should wait a minimum of four hours before getting behind the wheel; some experts recommend eight to 12 hours. 

That people don’t know this is the fault of governments, which have rushed headlong into legalization without doing the required research or adopting necessary safeguards. In effect, they’re conducting live experiments on their own citizens. Voters should hold officials accountable for boosting public awareness and developing better detection technology.

The fight against drinking and driving offers a useful precedent. After widespread government-sponsored campaigns helped stigmatize such conduct, drunk-driving fatalities were cut in half. Stronger enforcement also played a part. The advent of Breathalyzers made drinkers think twice before getting behind the wheel. 

So far, marijuana users don’t face the same disincentive, partly because the technology for roadside testing isn’t reliable or widespread. Fear of arrest is a powerful public-policy lever, but right now, many drivers are getting high with impunity, and the public is paying a high price.

Bloomberg News published this editorial on April 4, 2024. It was reprinted in part by the Chicago Tribune on April 10, 2024. 

The photo above comes from a crash that killed three teens and injured another near Lynnwood, WA in July, 2017. Washington legalized marijuana in 2012, and commercialized it in 2014.

Editorial

Alex Berenson editorial suggests parents step up to the plate

This was supposed to be the year full cannabis legalization in the U.S. moved much closer to being a reality.  Instead it has been a disaster for advocates.  Although Illinois legalized recreational use on the final day of its legislative schedule, a half-dozen other deep-blue states that were expected to legalize failed to follow — including New York.

Advocates want to believe legalization on their terms, with few restrictions on marketing and limits potentially as low as 18, remains inevitable.  Polls show that between 62% and 66%of Americans support legalization.  But cannabis supporters are wrong, and the pushback against marijuana has only begun.

Why?  Because teen use is on the rise.  And the experience of the 1970s — the last time cannabis advocates believed they might win full national acceptance — shows that the strongest voices against cannabis use aren’t police officers or even physicians.  They’re parents. …As teenage use of cannabis exploded during the 1970s, many parents became deeply concerned. The drug seemed to damage their children’s motivation, memory and grades. …

Not coincidentally, in states where legalization failed this year, wealthier suburban lawmakers proved a crucial political stumbling block.  Because of the cost of vaping, the habit seems to be more attractive to upper-middle class kids, and their parents are nw seeing marijuana’s real risks up close.  As that knowledge spreads, the media is likely to take a more skeptical stance, and national support for legalization will shrink.  

Alex Berenson, The Wall Street Journal   

As published in the Chicago Tribune, July 3, 2019  

Alex Berenson is the author of Tell Your Children the Truth about Marijuana, Mental Health and Violence and 12 other books.

News Articles

Four States decline to legalize pot through legislatures this year

Marijuana legalization hit stone walls in New York and New Jersey this week and another effort died in New Hampshire.   In Vermont, legislation to establish a commercial marijuana market faltered, too.  Four states failed.  Tiny windows of opportunity may still be open, but passing bills doesn’t appear possible before the end of this year’s legislative session.

It was the second year New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy tried to implement marijuana legalization through the legislature.  In New Jersey, Continue reading Four States decline to legalize pot through legislatures this year →

Driving

Ask Amy: No it’s Not SAFER When it Comes to DRiving

Amy Dickinson writes a syndicated column for a number of newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.  This question and answer appeared in the April 6, 2017 editions.  The marijuana lobby wrote a book, Marijuana is Safer,  full of misinformation.  We believe it’s important to publish this message from the Ask Amy column. 

Dear Amy: I have a 25-year-old granddaughter who will call a taxi or use a designated driver if she is going to be drinking, but she thinks it’s fine to smoke pot and get behind the wheel of a vehicle.

I have told her that she is probably more impaired after smoking pot then if she had a couple of drinks.

She totally disagrees. I have spoken to other pot smokers, and a lot of them agree with her.

How can I get her to understand the severe consequences that could happen to herself or some innocent person if she drives impaired?

— Frustrated!

Dear Frustrated: I shared your question with a spokesperson with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has published studies on this.

Their response: “There seems to be a common misperception — that people can compensate (and in fact drive more slowly than normal) under the influence of marijuana. But the research says something different — marijuana increases your risk of being in a car crash about two-fold, and also increases your risk of being at fault for the accident.”

“These effects are not as dramatic as the effects of alcohol (which increases your risk about five-fold at the 0.08 legal limit), but the combination of the two — marijuana and alcohol — is even worse than either one alone.”

That last point is important. If your granddaughter is using alcohol and marijuana at the same time (as many people do), she should not drive.

For more information check www.drugabuse.gov.

The marijuana-induced crash that killed bicyclist Richard Tom and driver Joseph Marshall, April 26,2015. Photo: Elizabeth Murray, Burlington Free Press

Editor’s Note: The number of fatal crashes — especially in the states of Washington and Colorado — caused by THC-impaired drivers suggests that NORML and Marijuana Policy Project need to issue warnings  against marijuana and driving.