(Change.org Criminal Justice) Advocates for marijuana reform frequently argue that the drug should be legalized because it’s safe. This is generally true, and I support legalization for this and many other reasons. But when it comes to driving and safety, legalization advocates often go a step too far — claiming that driving under the influence of marijuana is not dangerous and that marijuana causes zero deaths each year. These misleading arguments are harming the reform movement.
In the next couple of paragraphs the author calls out the authors of “Marijuana is Safer”, so I’ll leave that to Paul Armentano to cover. I’ve never claimed that driving under the influence of marijuana is not dangerous, though I have pointed out how it is safer than driving under the influence of alcohol or driving while text-messaging.
I also am increasingly perturbed by a society that thinks nothing of parking lots at bars and .08 BAC laws having zero tolerance for the notion of cannabis-using drivers. The fact that we have a per se standard of .08 BAC for alcohol-using drivers means that at below .08 BAC, the state has to prove you were actually too impaired to drive, not simply that you’d been drinking. We tolerate the idea that a big guy like me (6’0″ 260lbs.) might be able to drink one beer and be OK to drive, but the notion of driving after one puff off a joint is unthinkable? We tolerate people driving their cars to bars for the express purpose of becoming impaired knowing full well that not 100% of them have designated drivers, but were supposed to worry that legalizing pot will lead to blood on the highways?
So, I want to say to the commenters who frequently write here and elsewhere that driving under the influence of marijuana is not risky: you’re wrong. Not only are you wrong, but you’re spreading a dangerous myth that could cause deadly accidents and will hurt the chances for marijuana reform in the United States. To those who cite that stat that alcohol causes 75,000 deaths each year in the U.S. and marijuana causes zero: you’re wrong, too. Marijuana causes far, far fewer deaths than alcohol (maybe 0.1%) , but the number is not zero. Fatal accidents like this one and this one confirm that.
It’s always funny to me how one or two stories of people being helped by medical marijuana are just anecdotes that don’t scientifically prove anything, but one or two stories of a person pleading guilty to a fatal marijuana DUI wreck proves how dangerous marijuana and driving are.
The author, I believe, is purposefully excluding the context under which most of us say “marijuana never killed anyone”. I am always referring to marijuana being non-toxic and incapable of overdose. I try to be careful and only cite the 35,000 alcohol deaths from chronic conditions like the 18,000 whose livers fail or the 4,500 who suffer strokes and heart attacks or the 2,200 who get cancer. I try not to include the 40,000 whose alcohol use causes acute conditions like the 14,000 who wreck their car, boat, or plane or the 19,000 who fall, commit suicide, or are murdered, or the 2,200 who freeze, burn, or drown.
If we want to include all of the ways in which marijuana might lead to death of its users, then, indeed, it is false to say nobody ever died from marijuana. First we’d have to add in all the people who’ve been shot by police, murdered by dealers, or died choking on their own vomit due to lack of medical marijuana in a prison cell. We’d have to include people like the two drivers in the examples above, plus all the people who fell off a cliff because they tripped while stoned and the people who die of a heart attack from the obesity they got from the munchies. As you admit, that number is still probably 0.1% the deaths compared to alcohol under all conditions, which is why we are also careful to say marijuana is not harmless, but it is far less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. (Even that percentage is high, I think, as that would be 75 pot-related deaths per year.)
To show that we’re serious about responsible reform, marijuana reformers need to take a stand against driving under the influence of pot. Each of us can do our part.
Fine, I’ll take that stand: if your consumption of marijuana has led you to be as impaired as someone with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 or above, do not drive a car. If you’re at a public event, wait to drive for as long as they force the beer drinkers to wait before you get behind the wheel.
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change.org is secretly against marijuana reform. They act like they aren’t but I remember when they had that whole “Ideas for Obama” thing, marijuana reform was by far the #1 issue, but at first they left it off the list of ideas that won, then they added it back, way down on the list.
Then they started blogs about all the top ideas, to track if they were getting attention from the prez, but they didn’t start one on the marijuana issue.
And they keep hammering home this “driving on pot isn’t safe!!!!!111!1!!!!” issue, I have seen these articles on their site but never seen one about drug war harms. I don’t know exactly why they seem to be pro drug war, if it is the editorial staff that is anti-marijuana, or they don’t want to seem like a (lol) “radical fringe group”. But I really can’t stand them over there.
“The Cost Of Freedom”
I am one of those who hold true to the position that Marijuana does not significantly impair a persons ability to safely operate a vehicle. I Offer to prove it to anyone that says different any time they choose to be educated.
Walking a grey line does not do the cause any good. We should hold true to the facts. This is the last argument the prohibitionists have and it is as ridiculous as all the others.
The facts show us that while driving:
One sober 17 year old poses more risk to public safety than Marijuana users.
People over the age of 60 pose more risk to public safety than marijuana users.
People who work long hours pose more risk to public safety than marijuana users.
People who don’t get enough sleep pose more risk to public safety than marijuana users.
Your car stereo poses more risk to public safety than marijuana users.
Your Cell Phone poses more risk to public safety than marijuana users
……this list goes on for days!
All these risks are INSIGNIFICANT and ACCEPTABLE as marijuana should be.
We have to get back to a place of responsibility within our system of Freedom and liberty. We should NOT just legislate all human behaviour away. We certainly should not “nerf” the world.
We must accept that there is a cost to freedom and liberty. How far down the slope do we have to go before we say enough?
We see it all the time in our society. Laws telling you you HAVE to weat a seatbelt OR ELSE! Helmets, too. Right now there is a crusade to outlaw aluminum baseball bats.
Hey I have an idea! Why not just ban all activity outside the house? Weve become a culture of wussies.
I’m also tired of the cliche’ about the effects of marijuana. It isn’t alcohol and the effects are not even remotely compairable. It doesn’t make people zombies and doesn’t cause halucinations or impair vision.
All states have laws in place for reckless drivers. The only reason law enforcement wants new laws, special for marijuana, is because they can’t prove impairment (there is none) and need a new tool to keep jails filled. – now that the people are voting to decrim everywhere.
BAH!
– END RANT
I too dont want people driving while in a Zombie like state but my god there are studies that do prove impairment is far less than alcohol.
Even the Britts did a test here: http://tinyurl.com/6akcfp The guy did better after smoking, not that I or anyone would say its smart to do that! But it is more proof we should use to show cannabis is far less harmful alcohol.