If you’ve walked the streets in mostly any major city, chances are you’ve smelled pot smoke from passing cars, and experts say that’s becoming a serious problem.
With recreational marijuana legal in more than two dozen states, deadly motor vehicle crashes involving cannabis rose from 9% in 2000 to 21.5% in 2021, according to a study in the American Journal of Public Health.
Jane Metrik, a professor at Brown University’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, tells The Wall Street Journal, “It’s a big concern. There’s more people on the roads driving after they used cannabis or as they’re smoking or vaping.”
While high drivers tend to drive more slowly versus drunk drivers, the research states stoned drivers suffer from slow reaction time, have trouble staying in their lane, and have problems paying attention to multiple things at once.
According to the WSJ article, which compiled stats from JAMA Network Open, JAMA Psychiatry and the International Journal of Drug Policy, cannabis — and yes, edibles — affects drivers for far longer than they may think.
A series of experiments in 2022 revealed on average it took 4.5 hours for most participants to be back to normal driving in a simulator after using THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.
However, half the subjects assumed they were OK to drive after just 90 minutes.
Guidelines from the International Journal of Drug Policy say pot smokers can be impaired for as much as eight hours — and edibles munchers as many as 12.