Stoned driving is uncharted territory
By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times
It was his green tongue that helped give away Jimmy Candido Flores when police arrived at the fatal accident scene near Chico.
Flores had run off the road and killed a jogger, Carrie Jean Holliman, a 56-year-old Chico elementary school teacher. California Highway Patrol officers thought he might be impaired and conducted a sobriety examination. Flores’ tongue had a green coat typical of heavy marijuana users and a later test showed he had pot, as well as other drugs, in his blood.
After pleading guilty to manslaughter, Flores, a medical marijuana user, was sentenced in February to 10 years and 8 months in prison.
Holliman’s death and others like it across the nation hint at what experts say is an unrecognized crisis: stoned drivers.
The most recent assessment by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, based on random roadside checks, found that 16.3% of all drivers nationwide at night were on various legal and illegal impairing drugs, half them high on marijuana.
In California alone, nearly 1,000 deaths and injuries each year are blamed directly on drugged drivers, according to CHP data, and law enforcement puts much of the blame on the rapid growth of medical marijuana use in the last decade. Fatalities in crashes where drugs were the primary cause and alcohol was not involved jumped 55% over the 10 years ending in 2009.
“Marijuana is a significant and important contributing factor in a growing number of fatal accidents,” said Gil Kerlikowske, director of National Drug Control Policy in the White House and former Seattle police chief. “There is no question, not only from the data but from what I have heard in my career as a law enforcement officer.”
The idea that marijuana poses a risk on the highway is the latest lying point for America’s drug crusaders and corrupt police. Claims that pot smokers are a scourge on the roadways is a completely unsupported lie, which is contradicted by several U.S. Department of Transportation surveys of fatally injured drivers.
As reported in my book, “Why Marijuana Should Be Legal,” the facts show that marijuana smokers are actually the safest drivers in any category including teetotalers and completely drug free drivers. Any officer who tells you different is lying as well.
After fatal accidents, drivers were blood tested for 25 drugs including alcohol, cocaine, heroin and marijuana. A determination of who caused the accident was done and simple statistics showed that marijuana drivers have the lowest accident responsibility of any category.
When police talk about marijuana causing accidents they neglect to mention that several peer reviewed surveys done by the U.S. Department of Transportation showing that marijuana users have the lowest fatal accident risk of any group of drivers. In fact, stoned drivers have a lower accident responsibility rate than totally sober individuals.
Notions about lunatic behavior by pot smokers behind the wheel first appeared in the 1936 movie “Reefer Madness.” Like every other accusation in this scurrilous film, the claim that cannabis causes reckless driving is a provable lie! Blood tests of dead drivers show that stoned drivers are actually safer on the highway than completely drug free drivers.
When the California Highway Patrol mentions marijuana fatalities on California’s highways, they fail to tell people that the pot smokers were only responsible for a tiny fraction of the accidents they were involved in. Most of the dead pot drivers were killed by drunks or distracted drivers. Cannabis users had a lower accident risk than teetotalers.
This is not theory or guesswork. The numbers are based on actual highway fatalities, actual drug tests and a determination of who was at fault. After accident responsibility was assigned to each driver it was found that marijuana users had the lowest accident rate of any category.
The Drugs and Accident Risk in Fatally-Injured Drivers survey concluded that marijuana has a “negative risk factor” for fatal highway accidents. A “negative risk factor” means that pot smokers have a lower accident rate than teetotalers. It is a scientifically verified fact that marijuana users are safer drivers than sober drivers.
Cannabis Odd’s Ratio 0.6 (0.3-1.0) P-value 0.065
“Drivers in whom only opiates were detected had an odd’s ratio of 2.4, whilst marijuana cases provided a relative risk of 0.6. Drivers in whom stimulants were detected gave an odd’s ratio of 1.4 whilst benzodiazepines gave an odd’s ratio of 1.0. By contrast the odd’s ratio for alcohol was 6.8.”
“It was of some interest that cannabis tended to show a negative effect on relative risk when other drug groups showed an increase. This phenomenon has also been seen elsewhere [Terhune et al, 1992; Williams et al, 1985]. The most likely reason probably relates to the over compensation of marijuana-using drivers on their driving skills. Over compensation may be caused simply by slowing down and avoiding adverse driving situations. These observations do not seem to be related to whether delta-9-THC or 11-carboxy-THC are measured in blood [Terhune et al, 1992; Williams et al, 1985].”
Thankfully, I am working with courageous and honest police like my good friend, Stephen Downing, who is a former Deputy Police Chief for the LAPD, to fully legalize marijuana on the November 6, 2012 ballot. See details at: http://regulatemarijuanalikewine.com/
NO ONE should drive while impaired. Am I reading this correctly? Are you saying it’s OK to drive stoned? If your skills and reaction times are slowed by medication, drugs or alcohol you should not be behind the wheel of a car or operating any kind of machinery that can cause injury. That does not require a scientific study,
“tongue had a green coat typical of heavy marijuana users”.
really? green tongue?
No one should drive while impaired and no one disagrees with that. The question is does marijuana impair drivers and all the studies done on this matter have shown it does not impair drivers. Like the “green tongue” mentioned in this article, this is all a pack of lies. Such lies are worse than drug dealing, because when police or officials lie about drugs, kids stop listening and get addicted to the hard stuff.
Who wants to be on the road with a bunch of stoned drivers? Here are two excerpts from facts that I looked up:
The short term effects of marijuana use include: memory loss, distorted perception, trouble with thinking and problem solving, loss of motor skills, decrease in muscle strength, increased heart rate, and anxiety.
Even low doses of marijuana impair driving ability. The drug significantly affects judgment and concentration. It also affects perception, causing tunnel vision and slower eye adjustment to change in light. Marijuana also impairs motor skills. A study of drivers responsible for fatal accidents showed that 39% were impaired with alcohol and 16% with marijuana at the time of the crash. Marijuana presents a definite danger on the road.
Mr. Kubby’s comments are irresponsible. I’ve smoked pot before and I could barely tie my shoes let alone drive a car. That was back in the days when pot wasn’t as concentrated as it is now.
“I must tell you I have a real problem with your recent article in the Los Angeles Times. The medical marijuana law in California was passed in 1996. The prior year (1995) traffic fatalities in California numbered 4,164. In 2009 (the latest stats available) show 2,805 traffic fatalities in California, a reduction of 33%. Please tell me, how has medical marijuana contributed to an increase in traffic fatalities when there has been no increase in traffic fatalities?”
-Stephen Downing, Deputy Chief, LAPD (ret)