Concerns persist about driving and cannabis
Some believe there is no danger. There is, and police have guidelines and are laying charges
An alarming number of people admit to getting behind the wheel after consuming cannabis, or falsely believe it’s not dangerous.
This is true when looking at studies in the United States where cannabis is already legal, and in emerging studies in Canada, says Michael Amlung, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural neuroscience at McMaster University.
A Canadian Automobile Association study done in July and released late last week found 1.9 million Ontario motorists have driven while high on cannabis, with more than 735,000 admitting to doing so in the last three months.
In another study by Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, 28 per cent of 2,132 people surveyed said they had driven while under the influence of cannabis.
Perhaps more concerning, Amlung says, is the perception of some that driving after consuming cannabis is not dangerous or less dangerous than alcohol. In that Public Safety study of those who admitted to driving while high, 25 per cent said they believed it was less dangerous than alcohol, and 17 per cent said driving after consuming cannabis posed no real safety risk.
“That is really concerning,” Amlung said.
Amlung wrote about his concern in a recent guest editorial published in the Canadian Journal of Addiction in which he says cannabis-impaired driving is a “major public safety concern” and calls for more and better long-term research.
One such study underway, funded through the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research, is surveying people before legalization and then at six-month intervals to see
how behaviour and perceptions about cannabis use change over time.
“Attitudes and beliefs are the strongest predictors of the choices people will make,” he said.
With the clock ticking down to recreational cannabis legalization Oct. 17, there is a lot of noise around. Among the top health and safety concerns cited by municipalities and police is the question of impact on impaired driving.
By later this fall Hamilton police expect to have around 112 trained Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) officers. Halton Regional police have 11 DRE trained officers. This evaluation done at police stations measures drug impairment through a 12-step process that includes checking pulse and eyes.
While there are new legal drugblood levels, experts, including Amlung, agree there is no clear impairment level.
The Lower Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines recommend people who consume cannabis wait at least six hours to drive, but there are many factors that will influence impairment, including strength of product, amount consumed, the method (smoking or edibles, for instance) and how regularly the person uses cannabis.
With legalization, Amlung hopes there is better understanding.
“In the past, information was spotty at best,” he said, adding that with legalization comes increased attention and surveillance. In Hamilton, police have already noticed an increase in impaired by drug charges as they’ve been training more DRE officers.
Amlung has studied available information about what happened in U.S. states post legalization, and he says the results vary depending on where you look.
Looking solely at traffic fatalities, there is not an increase in impaired crash causing death rates, he said. But if you look at insurance claims, there is an uptick in claims for crashes involving impairment by cannabis.
But, as Amlung notes, with any crash there is always the potential for serious injury or death. “It only takes once,” he said. That’s why public eduction campaigns about the dangers of driving while high are so important.
In particular, Amlung says, this education needs to reach young people who statistically have an even more cavalier attitude toward driving while high.
Legally, young or novice drivers
and commercial drivers cannot have any cannabis in their system.