High times
You’ve written you live in Colorado, which legalized recreational marijuana years ago, and I’m wondering how that’s impacted traffic fatalities and wrecks. Many states will undoubtedly have to learn from your experience. We, too, are still learning. Many questions are emerging; many remain unanswered.
Scads of details couldn’t be predicted until selling recreationaluse marijuana became legal in 2014. (Medical marijuana was legal in Colorado before that but legal recreational use considerably changed the numbers and the proportion of those who use and then hit the roads.)
Something we regular folks notice: the frequency with which we wind up behind someone who slides into what we call “doper drift.” That’s when the driver you’re following is going the speed limit or slower, drifts to the left or right of the center of his lane and then, eventually, realizes this, and slowly — very slowly — steers back on track. This maneuver is very different from the texter, who, upon realizing he/she is moving out of his/her lane, jerks the car back to track. It doesn’t take long to distinguish between them, given how often we encounter each.
What officials have realized is there’s lots more to learn.
The Colorado Department of Transportation has launched The Cannabis Conversation, a multi-year initiative to ask questions and get some answers. (It’s the most recent of many efforts, including its “Drive High, Get a DUI” campaign.)
Cops now know that most people (55 percent) say they don’t believe driving buzzed is illegal (though they know driving after drinking is illegal). Really? Anyhow, efforts are afoot to convince them that marijuana, though legal, it can impair reaction time, motor skills and the perception of time and distance.
Two studies, using different methodologies, came up with differing results relating to marijuana’s impact on traffic incidents. One analyzed insurance claims in Colorado, Washington and Oregon after they’d legalized marijuana and found 3 percent more collisions than would have been anticipated without legalization. A second found no increase in vehicle fatalities in Colorado and Washington after legalization. Maybe more wrecks but not more deaths? More study necessary.
One bit of fallout is clear — in 2016, 77 fatalities in Colorado involved a driver impaired by active THC, according to state records.