Study Says Stoners Might Be Okay To Drive

Driving while under the influence of marijuana has a been a huge issue in the law community since states have begun to legalize. How is it possible to measure how stoned someone is on the side of the road?

Not only that but is marijuana really that dangerous while driving? In my personal opinion, driving while stoned reduces speeding, distractions, and random road rage. While I don’t recommend that all stoners go get blasted and try to drive, stoned driving can – in no way – be more dangerous than drunk driving.

A study done at Columbia University showed that marijuana had the lowest odds ratio of the driver being involved in a fatal car crash. There were multiple substances tested in the categories of stimulants, polydrug use, and narcotics. This study showed that the level of risk involving a crash while using marijuana is comparable to the risk of a crash on allergy medicine d penicillin. Since those pharmaceuticals have low crash risk, cannabis does as well.

Obviously, the substance with one of the highest crash rates was alcohol. In an article found on CNN.com regarding the most dangerous drug, alcohol was rated at 72 on a scale to 100 of one of the most dangerous drug. It surpassed heroin and cocaine. That’s a seriously harmful substance that’s legally sold everywhere. As a multi-billion dollar business, you would think that these companies would care about the welfare of their consumers. But providing places like bars, where patrons are sort of forced to drive, just promotes driving drunk.

This new study done at Columbia will hopefully show that marijuana isn’t dangerous, even when a stoner is behind the wheel. Marijuana increases focus and not to mention, the paranoia effect that some strains have on smokers makes them super aware to what’s going on around them. A stoner that’s driving is far more likely to follow the laws of the road because of their fear of being pulled over. Before more smokers get prosecuted for driving while stoned, we should take a step back and rethink this alcohol thing. The most dangerous drug should not be legal, that’s for sure.