Posted on 07/16/2021 6:57:20 PM PDT by Right Wing Vegan
Analysts said 6,453 police-reported incidents of drug-impaired driving in 2019, the first full year of legalization, “a 43% increase over 2018.”
Unlike drinking and driving charges that peak in twilight hours, “the rate of drug-impaired driving varies little from one time of day to another,” said the report.
“Police reported just as many of these incidents between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., as between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m,.” wrote analysts.
Cases also took twice as long to wind through the courts as alcohol-related charges.
(Excerpt) Read more at westernstandardonline.com ...
How long have they had the legal and law enforcement resources to enforce and track drugged driving? I daresay not very long. Cops obviously get better at spotting and stopping drugged driving with practice. Based on that this might be statistical artifact and not a genuine rise.
CC
I learned that lesson as a teenager.
I smoked pot and drove exactly once, and what a drive it was.
It seemed like everything was moving—up and down, left and right, everything seemed to happening very fast and then very slow—scared the s^%$ out of me...
It definitely impairs driving...
If the previous year was partial, of course it's gonna rise in a FULL year! Dumb title, dumb journalist.
CC
Not hard to spot someone driving in the Cheech & Chong mode.
Some other types of DUI are hauling ass at night while wearing sunglasses.
If drunk driving is not sufficient reason to make alcohol illegal, high driving is not sufficient reason to keep marijuana illegal.
That usually only happens to people new to it.
One notable difference is that it’s easy to test alcohol levels. Right now it’s not possible to measure marijuana impairment using any kind of blood or breath screening.
I question whether that difference invalidates my point; a roadside test (walk a line, etc.) can still get an incapacitated driver off the road for several hours.
Let’s further note that alcohol testing hasn’t eliminated drunk driving, and that stoned driving happened even before legalization.
and lets further note that a good many “drunk” driving accidents also included drugs in the system, but never tested for....
Your point reminded me about some interesting differences between alcohol impairment and marijuana impairment. Someone marijuana impaired can seem fine in terms of walking a line. However, at the same time they are still likely to be suffering from reduced depth perception, susceptibility to flashes and other visual acuity issues that likely would require ophthalmologist tests.
Furthermore, marijuana users' susceptibility to false memories (scary!) make them prone to risk of "remembering" there was nothing in the blind spot they checked, or that a traffic light they glanced at was green rather than red. Such false memories are generated randomly and would require an extended dialogue with police to realize they were occurring. (People under alcohol's effects only have memory issues if they black out.)
“differences between alcohol impairment and marijuana impairment”
You’ve provided half the support for your claim of difference, by posting evidence of certain effects of marijuana; the remaining half is posting reason to believe these effects are absent with alcohol (e.g. research that looked for them and failed to observe them).
‘a good many “drunk” driving accidents also included drugs in the system, but never tested for....’
Since they were never tested for, all we can say is that the number of such cases cannot be proven to be zero; there is no basis for your claim “a good many”.
Alcohol doesn't create psycho false memories like pot does:
With regards to depth perception, the difference is that with alcohol, your depth perception will be diminished along with motor functions , which means by walk-the-line test as well as objective blood alcohol test. This is unlike marijuana, where your perception can be altered even without any motor function issue, and without of course any objective test to show intoxication.
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