Three myths about cannabis-impaired driving – Cannabis | weed | marijuana

What are three myths about driving while under the influence of cannabis? In an article for Farmers Forum, James Pascual reports that drug driver driving fees have more than doubled since Canada legalized cannabis.

Of course, the “significant increase in the prevalence of drug use” among drivers also includes alcohol and prescription drugs. Also, before that, a lot of people drove with cannabis. The difference is that the police now have the tools and training to look for it.

Pascual’s article is high in opinion and low in fact. For example, he writes: “There are more cannabis shops in Ontario than Tim Horton’s coffee shops, [so] It is not surprising that drug driving has also increased.”

That’s dishonest. Tim Hortons is a coffee franchise, one of many that exists alongside numerous independently owned coffee shops. Ontario’s cannabis stores are also numerous, independently owned and operated.

An honest approach would compare the number of cannabis stores in Ontario to the number of all coffee shops in Ontario, not just Tim Horton’s locations.

I only mention this because Pascual had written positively about ivermectin for COVID-19 when “public health” tried to censor this information. In fact, the Farmers Forum was excellent at the Truckers Freedom Convoy.

So your BS detector goes off when the government uses a flu virus to crack down on civil liberties.

But hemp? Apparently, the Farmers Forum has no problem taking Ottawa at its word. So, for the sake of Pascuals and others, let’s dispel three common myths about driving with cannabis problems.

#3 Cannabis-impaired driving myth: You have to wait two hours

According to legal cannabis regulations in Canada, users must wait at least two hours from consuming to driving. Well, for new users, this is a good rule of thumb.

It is common to drive with caffeine. It is often encouraged. But imagine a teenager who is new to driving and new to drinking coffee.

This driver would have an increased heart rate, increased feelings of nervousness, and decreased fine motor skills, which can affect driving performance. However, the “experts” estimate the impairment caused by caffeine to be less than that caused by other drugs, such as cannabis. So the legislature looks the other way.

At the end of the day, this problem boils down to familiarity and bias. Someone who uses sativa cannabis regularly during the day (like some people drink coffee) probably shouldn’t wait two hours before heading out.

In fact, that person should consume before they get behind the wheel. Otherwise, they will be groggy and unfocused since they haven’t smoked in two hours.

Of course, not everyone uses cannabis like caffeine. For those who like it before bed, the idea of ​​being out (and driving!) with THC during the day sounds incredibly uncomfortable.

But ignoring the people who consume cannabis like coffee, claiming that they drive “disabled” and are therefore dangerous, is plain chilling madness.

It’s like looking at liquor stores with drive-through windows and assuming the worst.

#2 Cannabis Impaired Driving Myth: Breathalyzers accurately measure impairment

We’ve already covered this cannabis-impaired driving myth. People first invented breathalyzers to detect alcohol on a person’s breath. To that end, they are more or less reliable indicators (though not perfect).

Measuring impairment from cannabis is more complex, however, as THC (the main psychoactive component in cannabis) can remain in a person’s body for long periods of time. Even after the psychoactive effect has worn off.

The body metabolizes THC differently than alcohol. There is no clear correlation between the amount of THC in a person’s blood or saliva and their level of impairment.

For example, Canadian authorities use the Dräger Drug Test 5000 for roadside sobriety testing. But this machine sees no impairment. It looks for the presence of certain drugs or their metabolites in the body.

The Dräger test can also provide false positive results. But overall, if the police have to run a series of tests to determine your level of impairment – how impaired can you be?

Are you being subjected to a Dräger test because you drove irregularly? Or was this the result of a roadside check? One of the many ways the state restricts mobility rights under the guise of “public health”.

#1 Cannabis Impaired Driving Myth: Cannabis affects everyone

As we saw with coffee, impairment is subjective. Whether cannabis affects your ability to be a safe driver depends on your tolerance and level of experience. This cannabis-impaired driving myth stems from a common misconception about the various drugs in our everyday lives.

Your likelihood of an accident increases when you mess with your reaction time, alertness, and coordination. Anyone who has ever ridden with children or pets (or been distracted by texting or road rage) knows you don’t need medication to increase this risk.

However, alcohol and cars are always a bad idea. But depending on your dose and experience, caffeine, nicotine or cannabis can alter your ability to drive for better or for worse.

For some, caffeine, nicotine or cannabis means distracted, dangerous driving. As a non-nicotine user, I can imagine that the headache emanating from a cigarette would bother me temporarily. I wouldn’t want to drive 100 km/h there.

Others require one or more of these substances for a fully conscious, safe driving experience. If this worries you, let’s privatize the roads and let the new owners create their own drug driving policies.

What is “cannabis impairment”?

Of course, critics will say that these are not cannabis driving myths. Regular cannabis users are simply unaware of their impairment thanks to their THC tolerance.

But that doesn’t define what an impairment actually is. If someone is using phytocannabinoids to relieve anxiety, wouldn’t it harm them to forgo this drug?

Let’s say you have to drive somewhere but you have migraines. Your choice is to either drive “sober” with a pounding headache. Or take some aspirin and drive “impaired” because it says right on the bottle that it impairs your motor skills.

Wouldn’t it be better to drive without migraines? Even if it means taking drugs before driving?

Despite what some may claim, there is a significant lack of high-quality research linking cannabis to increased car accidents.

Research on cannabis-impaired driving has been observational. These studies have not established causality, nor have they been replicated. They are simply opinions with a Science™ label attached.

Anyone in a position to criticize the COVID health regime should be aware of this.

Lies about cannabis are nothing new. The old reefer craze propaganda claimed cannabis caused black men to rape white women.

Now we are being told that cannabis will double the risk of fatal car accidents.

For some common sense, let’s recall what Professor Iain McGregor, academic director of the Lambert Initiative, told an Australian Senate committee.

Cannabis and driving is actually a very complicated area. The tendency is to look at it through the prism of alcohol, but there are actually almost diametrically opposite effects for cannabis compared to alcohol. With alcohol, people overestimate themselves and are more likely to take risks. With cannabis, people actually feel impaired… When they drive, there are quite reliable effects such as slower speed and more distance between them and the car in front.

Continuing,

If you give someone cannabis for the first time, they will be very affected for a few hours after using it, but if someone is a patient and has used cannabis chronically every day for two years, you will really have trouble finding any kind of Impairment. So we need more research and we need more enlightened information for patients instead of just saying, ‘don’t drive’.

And there’s also UBC PhD student Michelle St. Pierre’s research on the myths of cannabis-impaired driving:

We found that there was actually no difference in perception between the sober state and the stoned state.