"NORML's Paul Armentano has prepared a scientific review of over a dozen studies evaluating marijuana's effect on psychomotor skills and the risks posed by marijuana intoxication behind the wheel."

Who cares:

Okay Armentano, let's just say for the sake of your "expertise" that someone has a pregnant wife driving their hurting beater car down a street on the way to the doctor when a kid driving their parents brand new SUV is handing a joint to their pal in the passengers' seat and is not paying attention to the road. They are barely "high" because it's 10:00 AM and not 4:20, so as teenagers they ain't that "stoned" but they are lousy drivers in the first place, not paying attention in the second place and the woman is on her cell phone with her hubby -- baby's daddy -- in the third place. The kid wanders over the double-yellow line and hits the mama to be head on, killing her and the baby-to-be. Does that scenerio figure into any of your "studies" or are you just relying upon veteran drivers driving while imbibing marjiuanna behind the wheel? Hmmmmm?

one question comes to mind when i read this - essentially no medical research can be done because no one can legally get the marijuana for it. where is it coming from for the driving studies?

and i need to chime in on comment #1 too...sounds like the real danger in your scenario is an inexperienced teenage driver. maybe the pregnant mom should have not been on her cell phone. the fact remains that there are many, many everyday things that impair driving more than marijuana use, which tends to slow people down and give more room to the people in front of them! now will you argue that fast driving and tailgating are not major causes of accidents?

First, as to Paul Amentano's report ... yes, Thank You. That is one of fthe things NORML should be doing.

Secondly, I have driven stoned ... ONCE .. and had exactly the reactions found in the study, right up to the point of determining to not do it again. My (deceased) husband was an alcoholic. In eleven years, he drove drunk twice despite my best efforts to prevent it (he picked me up at work and I didn't realize he was drunk until he pulled out of the parking lot). Fortunately, it was only about 2 miles home but I was scared witless and prayed the entire way home. Conversely, the guy I live with is a good driver sober and I notice no perceptible difference in his driving when he's stoned.

While I have no evidence to prove my assumption, my guess is that the use of cellphones by drivers has already left a horrific trail of accidents, injuries, and deaths. If a stoned driver is in an accident, s/he was probably hit by a drunk or cellphone user. Most likely no stoned driver would be using a cellphone, the only phone call that could possibly be THAT important to a stoner would be to his/her dealer and THAT call would have been made BEFORE the driver left home!

While on chemotherapy several years ago I noticed that the antidepressant zoloft made my driving unstable. It made me shakey. Only after injesting cannabis did I feel secure enough to drive.
I'll be quite honest, I have been driving while on cannabis since 1972 and the only infractions that I've had are from alcohol which I have given up. Cannabis only makes driving more interesting and enjoyable, just like everything else, music, art, etc.... While first time or casual users should not attempt this, unlike alcohol, new cannabis users know better than to get behind the wheel. Why spoil the buzz!

THANKS AGAIN PAUL AND NORML, FOR ALL YOU DO!!!!!!!

Garry Minor
Columbus Indiana

Before you can logically discuss the quality of people's driving, you first have to understand the concept of Risk Compensation: the effect whereby individual animals may tend to adjust their behaviour in response to perceived changes in risk. It is seen as self-evident that individuals will tend to behave in a more cautious manner if their perception of risk or danger increases. Another way of stating this is that individuals will behave less cautiously in situations where they feel "safer" or more protected.

As a person ages, their motor and thinking skills diminish, but the mind is able to compensate for the delays in signal processing, so that an old man can continue to play the piano or drive a car. Despite their reduced reaction time, the elderly get into far fewer accidents because they take greater caution, and reduce the risks in their behavior as compensation.

It has been shown that pot smokers' skills are actually much better than they precieve them to to be. Therefor they take greater steps towards Risk Compensation than are actually necessary. Time after time, sudies which have been set up to show how bady pot smokers drive have in fact showed the opposite. Pot smokers generally driver much safer than an average sober person, and under-estimate the quality of their own driving. They also tend to look past the artifical lines of guidance to see what other cues to danger might be present.

Compare this to the driver drunk on alcohol, who do not precieve the great extent to which their factulties are diminished, and who over-estimate the quality of their driving. These are ther drivers who will, for example hit the gas on a green light before the driver in front of them has noticed the light change, rear-ending the next driver in the process. They process the most simple or obvious cues without paying attention to anything past that.

The very archtecture of the road, with it's lane guides, marked crosswalks, signs, signals, etc. have in fact been shown to increase the number of accidents compared to the same roads and intersections where they are not present. Ex. put a crosswalk in the road where people normally jaywalk, and as a result more pedestrians will be struck by cars, because they will feel artificially safe, and check to see if drivers notice them. Road guidance are put in place mainly as a tool to make people FEEL safer on the road, when you are in fact statistically less safe because you compensate for the lower precieved risk by engaging in more risky behavior.

Remove the lines, signs, and signals from a road, and drivers will respond to the risks that are actually present on the road, and drivers look directly to eachother for guidance and negotiation. Most accidents are in fact caused by a driver taking the right-of-way when it has not been given to them - failures in negotiation. In effect, anything that makes a driver feel safer on the road will increase their compensation for lower precieved risk. In South East Asia, you can find major intersections where masses of motorbikes, busses, cars, animals, bicycles, and pedestrians all move quickly through unsignaled and unregulated intersections with no descernable pattern, and yet accidents are actually very rare because all drivers are negotiationg with eachother directly, and they adjust their behavior to match the situation.

First, I'm glad to see that folks are interested in my report. That said, I would encourage folks to please read my full report, as many of the issues raised above are addressed in the full text.

For those who have not read my report, the primary conclusions are:

** Past use of cannabis, as defined by the presence of inactive metabolites in urine, is not associated with an elevated accident risk compared to controls.

** Recent use of cannabis within the past few hours, as defined by THC/blood concentrations below 5 ng/ml, is seldom associated with elevated accident risk compared to controls.

** Acute cannabis intoxication, as defined by THC/blood concentrations above 5ng/ml, may be positively associated with an elevated risk of accident compared to controls, but this risk is lower than the risk posed by alcohol.

** Acute cannabis and alcohol intoxication combined is associated with an elevated risk of accident that is greater than the use of either substance alone.

Based on this evidence, the latter third of the report makes several policy recommendations, including the establishment of a nationwide educational campaign targeting drivers age 16-25, as this group is most likely use cannabis and report having operated a motor vehicle shortly after consuming pot. In addition, this population may have less driving experience, may be more prone to engage in risk-taking behavior, and may be more naïve to pot’s psychoactive effects than older, more experienced populations. This population also reports a greater likelihood for having driven after using cannabis in combinations with other illicit drugs or alcohol. Such an educational campaign was recently launched nationwide in Canada by the Canadian Public Health Association (I was one of the consultants) and could readily be replicated in the United States. Arguably, such a campaign would enjoy enhanced credibility if coordinated by a private public health association or traffic safety organization, such as the American Public Health Association or the AAA Automobile Club, as opposed to the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy – whose previous public service campaigns have demonstrated limited influence among younger audiences.

For those out there who wish to read more on this subject, I’d recommend the following resources:

* Franjo Grotenhermen. Drugs and Driving: Review for the National Treatment Agency, UK. Nova-Institut (Germany). November 2007.

* Drummer et al. 2004. The involvement of drugs in drivers killed in Australian road traffic crashes. Accident, Analysis and Prevention 36: 239-248.

* Grotenhermen et al. 2007. Developing per se limits for driving under cannabis. Addiction (E-pub ahead of print).

* Bedard et al. 2007. The impact of cannabis on driving. Canadian Journal of Public Health 98: 6-11.

* Laumon et al. 2005. Cannabis intoxication and fatal road crashes in France: a population base case-control study. British Medical Journal 331: 1371-1377.

Finally, to address two of the comments above. One, these are not "my" studies; my report is simply a review of the available evidence. The literature may differ from some folks' perceptions, but that is hardly a reason to deny the evidence. Two, regarding "risk compensation," I must point out that drivers over age 60 do in fact have an approximately three-fold elevated accident risk on the road compared to drivers age 30. In fact, this elevated risk is quite similar to the overall drugged driving risk compared to controls -- a comparison that I go in depth about in my report, and that is summed up in detail by Grotenhermen in his recent review: "Drugs and Driving: Review for the National Treatment Agency, UK."

I'm a 69 yr/old jazz musician - bassist - and have been smoking herb since my early twenties. I used to drink, (Emphasis on "used to"...) and never got a DUI or had an accident when drinking. I credit this to pure, blind luck, since I used to drive when seriously impaired. I quit drinking over 25 years ago, mostly because of its effects on my ability to play well. Don't miss it.

Marijuana, on the other hand, has no adverse effect on my motor coordination and allows me to concentrate on the music and get past the pain and numbness of arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. I find the resulting attitude adjustment to be helpful, as well. From where I sit I can acknowledge health dangers similar to tobacco, but not much else.

What the hell does this have to do with marijuana's effects on driving a car or motorcycle? (Both of which I do. Been riding longer than I've been driving...) For me - and I emphasize that I'm probably not your typical driver - the effect is similar to why I like to play behind it. (I need to qualify this a little further. I am definitely NOT talking about smoking myself into a stupor. May occasionally do that, but not on a bike or in a car. Period. When I was twenty-five, though... We've all been young and stupid.) My approach to riding and driving is probably a little off the norm, too. I'm a gearhead, as well as a bass player. Riding well, especially, is a lot like playing my bass. Very intimate and skill-based. Somewhat less so in a car, but still there. A little herb actually helps. Again, I'm not talking about doing these things wasted.

The drunk driver speeds through the stop sign without even seeing it.

The stoned driver stops and patiently waits for it to turn green.

- Pete Guither

I've logged about 40,000 miles stoned. Not a single accident, ticket or any other incident. I delivered pizza for 3 years, even smoking while working (dumb, yes, but shhh) and never came close to causing an accident. Also I've been touring with my band cross country smoking all the way without incident. Not even a close call.
A while back I tried to drive home after spending a night out at a local bar and didn't get buit a halfmile down the road when I missed a curve while texting (!!) Hitting a guardrail.

I don't care if it's not as bad as alcohol. It impairs you quite a bit and kids and adults alike shouldn't be driving under the influence. People do get in accidents and in some cases people are killed. Of course, we should be diligent about minimizing impairment of all forms: alcohol, marijuana, cell phones, etc. Keep in mind not all marijuana is equal by any means and varies in potency, just like alcohol, but because marijuana is not regulated people don't know how powerful it is until they use it. If it were regulated, states would be able to control the potency of mj sold to the public. It's very concerning that inexperienced teen drivers are having easier access to this stronger marijuana from dealers. We should highly discourage any kind of driving while intoxicated and highlight how marijuana prohibition does not have control over these dealers, encourages greater teen use and, therefore, increases the likelihood of automobile accidents on the road. It's a very permissive situation we now have and has created a dangerous environment for families. Also, I think every state should have laws requiring special sealed packaging of marijuana and any marijuana in an open container or package in an automobile should be considered a law violation like driving with an open container for alcohol. If it were legally regulated, this form of packaging could be standardized for all marijuana sales. Marijuana prohibition is hardly prohibits anything except sensible public safety measures.

In the context of driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs, prohibitionists frequently use the following faulty reasoning:

(1) Alcohol intoxication greatly diminishes the ability to drive while making the drinker think that he is still capable of driving;
(2) Alcohol is a drug;
(3) Marijuana is a drug;
(4) Therefore marijuana intoxication greatly diminishes the ability to drive while making the drinker think that he is still capable of driving.

Anyone who has ever been stoned knows that that's not how marijuana works, as several people have explained in these comments. But there are additional arguments you can used when a prohibitionist tells you that legalized marijuana will lead to additional highway death:

(1) Alcohol consumption, and thus drunk driving, will go down when marijuana is legalized. Right now there's only one legal way to get high: ethyl alcohol. Like many other people, I drink because it's my only way to get a buzz. I don't like the taste of booze, and I don't get that much out of being drunk, but I don't have regular access to a trusted pot dealer and I can't afford to get pinched, so I drink rum. Millions of regular, hardworking professionals are the same way. If marijuana was legal, I would smoke pot instead of drinking. There would be one more stoned driver on the road, but one less drunk driver. If marijuana and alcohol were equally dangerous (they're not), this would be a wash.

(2) People don't use weed the way they use alcohol. Want a drink? Go to a bar or restaurant. Now that you're done, you've got to get home somehow. That means that there's probably going to be some driving under the influence. That's not how people use weed. People sit around their houses and get baked, and if they have friends with them they usually don't leave until they can find their keys, which is a long, long time if they've got some kind bud. Marijuana simply doesn't have the public consumption aspect that alcohol does. The response to this argument is that marijuana is only smoked in homes because it's illegal, and thus must be consumed in secret. That's true. But I don't advocate the Netherlands model of legalization. I would be fine with a ban on all public marijuana consumption. Hell, you can't smoke a cigarette in bars and restaurants anymore, so you wouldn't be able to smoke a fatty.

(3) Do you people even watch your own anti-marijuana commercials? Ever seen the one where we're told that when you smoke weed you become lazy and sit on the couch all day? There's some truth to that. But when you're sitting on the couch, you're not out running red lights. So which is it: does weed make you a terrible driver, or does it make you sit at home and not drive?

(4) The biggest risk-takers already smoke weed. Consider the risks that pot smokers take: They risk being arrested. They risk testing positive for drugs in a workplace drug test. They risk being robbed by an unscrupulous dealer. If you want to smoke weed today, you really have to like weed, and you have to be a risk-taker. Risk-takers are the ones who drive while stoned. People who don't smoke weed today avoid it because they don't want to take the risks. If weed was legal, people who are more risk-averse would try it. These are people who are more responsible than the people who smoke illegal weed. They're not going to take chances with their lives any more than they currently take chances with their freedom.

The best advice I ever got was when my kids were small and I saw a spot on the news about how to educate your kids about drugs. The idea was to have two talks with them. In the first, everything is poison and they should never touch any of it. The second is (hopefully) before their friends start experimenting; I think they said around 12 years old but that is certainly not early enough these days, with all the parents working and so many kids home alone. In the second talk, you rationally explain which drugs ARE poison and which will get you arrested. If you miss the mark and their friends begin experimenting, you lose all credibility when the friends don't die and you'd better start damage control.

When my son hit middle school and they began pushing drug education, they sent people into the classrooms to lie to the kids. My son liked to skate so he had already been exposed to marijuana by that time. We'd already had the second talk with him as well and he would come home questioning the stories of marijuana overdose resulting in death. I was furious. If we can't honestly educate our kids, how can we expect them to listen to anything we say?!

In our town, our public schools have lost all credibility and they could care less. If the kids exibit any real individuality, they are being stalked to the point of dropping out or, if they don't, they are eventually expelled because they become so rebellious. Our dropout and expulsion rates are soaring. I pulled my son out and put him in online high school and he's still in school at least. Most of his friends were expelled and never went back.

Now, admittedly, we've made mistakes with my now 17-year-old son because it's difficult to be hardnosed about something you did when you were his age (and would do today, if it were legal). But the one thing we still have is an influence on him. I'd rather influence him than be raising a robot.

I would like to send a message to President Bush: As a parting gesture, legalize marijuana. That is probably the only real legacy you could achieve at this point but what a legacy it would be. Ending modern day prohibition could offset some of the negatives when you are written about in the history books. "He made mistake after mistake and was widely despised BUT..."

I don't even smoke pot, and I could have told you that marijuana, if anything, makes drivers MORE cautious. Not that I condone driving while stoned, but it's a lot less dangerous than, say, driving while angry, driving while sleepy or driving while trying to eat a 7-layer burrito from Taco Bell.

The function of government should be to protect the public; the policy of labeling a driver "impaired" simply because of the presence of an illegal substance in his/her system is just one more example of how our elected leaders thumb their noses at us.

njweedman's picture is stretching this page! PLEASE resize it

I have been a marijuana user for about 2 years. I smoke on a daily basis and can function while driving and all other activities just as good - if not better when I am high. It definetly has made my life better. I can get all my work done take care of any family buisness, and then be able to relax after a long day, or if I have nothing to do on a particular day I can just smoke some weed, and be perfectly fine with being bored - and I dont go out, do somthing stupid or get drunk (and do something even more stupid). The reason I write this though is to reveal to people the sad, unjustified, moronic truth -Marijuana will never be legal in this country (USA)- -because we live in a country full of people like the nice first commenter, trying to play on peoples emotions, and insecurities. I live in this country a proud citizen, but when I speak to people say from Amsterdam, or Canada, I am ashamed and almost emmbarassed at how much we have criminalized Marijuana use in this country. I feel that our government thinks we are all ignorant about pot, and that it is going to stay illegal for the remainder of this country's life span, because of who controls the laws, and how much the everyday man doesnt actually have a true say in what is right for a resident of the US to ingest, at least in there own damn home.

Sadly, but truly we will have ridiculous laws about pot in America forever. . .

you buy youre drugs off a dealer so you are funding crime

Any person who tells you that you can safely drive a car while stoned is out of their mind, literally. Marijuana impairs you far more than any prescriptoin drugs or alcohol. Try telling your buddy to not smoke weed then drive a car. What I am seeing is the more these guys smoke to the point where they can't walk because they are so high and can't find the keys, the safer I am.

Here is a test, get someone high on pot, put them in the car (without the keys, of course) turn on some stoner music. See them laugh and repeat "God...I am so f***king stoned right now."

Me gusta la mala hierba mucha.

i drive like an angel when im high, no matter how high. i drive like a maniac when im sober .
if im having a bad trip and need to calm down when im high i go for a drive, nothing makes u more alert.

its great!

now boozed up man, that my friend is not a good idea. if u for one fucking second thinkg weed impairs u more then alcohol ur a goddamn idiot who needs to get there shit straight.

if i had to choose between a friend who just smoked two blunts to the brain to drive me home or a friend whos had 6 beers, betta believe im going with the
blazed one.

ya fuckin idiot