I remember someone stating on FR that pot smokers drive better than drivers stone cold sober. Honestly. With a straight face.
Yeah. When I was young and foolish, I was known to hit a joint every now and again. I remember being high and driving down the interstate at 25 miles per hour for lord who knows how long without realizing it.
Great drivers.
APf
Pot smokers may or may not drive as badly as people under the influence of alcohol, but pot does affect depth perception. If you get rear ended or run over in a crosswalk by a pot smoker it's because he thought he was stopping 10 feet back from where he actually stopped.
U.S. Department of Transportation National Traffic Safety Administration DOT HS 808 939
Marijuana, Alcohol and Actual Driving Performance
July 1999
S.1 General Conclusions
In a previous series of studies on the effects of THC alone we concluded that THC given in doses up to 300 1lg/kg has "slight" effects on driving performance (Robbe & O'Hanlon, 1993). The results of the present study now compel us to revise that conclusion. The present subjects' performance was more affected than their predecessors'. The present subjects showed impaired car following performance after THC 100 1lg/kg whereas the previous ones were not impaired by doses up to 300 1lg/kg. In the present study, road tracking performance after 200 ~g/kg was worse than the performance after 300 ~g/kg in the previous study. We believe that these differences are attributable to the groups' respective experience with THC smoking and to driving under the influence of THC. The present group was less experienced and probably had not developed the same degree of behavioral tolerance as their predecessors. Yet all of the individuals in both groups admitted to having occasionally driven under the influence of THC before entering the studies. Thus, the new data seem no less representative of how drivers normally operate under the influence of THC. The addition of these data to those previously collected merely broadens the range of reactions that might be expected to occur in real life. That range has not been shown to extend into the area that can rightfully be regarded as dangerous or an obviously unacceptable threat to public safety. Alcohol present in blood concentrations around the legal limit (0.10 g/dl) in most American States is more impairing than anything subjects have shown after THC alone in our studies. As mentioned, medicinal drugs have had worse effects on psychiatric patients' driving performance in other studies employing the same test procedures. If not blatantly dangerous, however, the effects of THC alone in this study were certainly more than slight. They were of sufficient magnitude to warrant concern. Drivers suffering the same degrees of impairment as the present subjects did after THC alone would be less than normally able to avoid collisions if confronted with the sudden need for evasive action. They would probably also be more likely to fall asleep during prolonged vehicle operation. In short, while the effects of THC alone in doses up to 200 1lg/kg might be categorized as "moderate" in the tests, they could easily become "severe" under exceptional circumstances.
Impaired operation of a motor vehicle on the roadways is against the law. It would remain so even if marijuana were legalized.
Impaired operation of a Lazy-Boy...no way!