Pot Fuels Surge in Drugged Driving Deaths
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By Bill Briggs
During each shift at her drive-through window, once an hour, Cordelia Cordova sees people rolling joints in their cars. Some blow smoke in her face and smile.
Cordova, who lost a 23-year-old niece and her 1-month-old son to a driver who admitted he smoked pot that day, never smiles back. She thinks legal marijuana in Colorado, where she works, is making the problem of drugged driving worse — and now new research supports her claim.
"Nobody hides it anymore when driving," Cordova said. "They think it's a joke because it’s legal. Nobody will take this seriously until somebody loses another loved one."
As medical marijuana sales expanded into 20 states, legal weed was detected in the bodies of dead drivers three times more often during 2010 when compared to those who died behind the wheel in 1999, according to a new study from Columbia University published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
[ Re testing: Blood tests determine if marijuana was used in the last few hours before testing - see below. Urine tests aren't as refined but they're cheaper so people are familiar with them - they're what employers use. Based on things I've observed almost all marijuana users think it's not dangerous to drive high. ]
“The trend suggests that marijuana is playing an increased role in fatal crashes,” said Dr. Guohua Li, a co-author and director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia University Medical Center. The researchers examined data from the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), spanning more than 23,000 drivers killed during that 11-year period.
"Nobody will take this seriously until somebody loses another loved one."
Alcohol remains, by far, the most common mind-altering substance detected in dead drivers, observed in the blood of nearly 40 percent of those who perished across six states during 2010, the Columbia study notes. (That rate remained stable between 1999 and 2010.)
Cannabinol, a remnant of marijuana, was found in 12.2 percent of those deceased drivers during 2010, (up from 4.2 percent in 1999). Pot was the most common non-alcoholic drug detected by those toxicology screenings.
“The increased availability of marijuana and increased acceptance of marijuana use” are fueling the higher rate of cannabinol found in dead drivers, Li told NBC News.
Researchers limited their analysis to California and five others states where toxicology screenings are routinely conducted within an hour of a traffic death. They note that California allowed medical marijuana in 2004. Since then, California has posted “marked increases in driver fatalities testing positive for marijuana,” Li said.
"The number of deaths will grow," Cordova said. "I'm scared."
Minutes after the crash that killed Cordova's niece, Tanya Guevara, and Guevara's 5-week-old son, police arrested the driver who struck Guevara's car. Steven Ryan, then 22, admitted to smoking pot earlier that day, according to court records. Ryan later pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012.
 Courtesy Cordelia Cordova
Tanya Guevara and her son, Adrian, were killed in 2010 when a driver, impaired after smoking marijuana, hit Guevara’s car head-on in Colorado. That same year, Cordova testified before Colorado lawmakers about a proposed impairment limit for stoned drivers. Under Colorado law today, drivers who test positive for 5 nanograms per milliliter of THC — an active ingredient in marijuana — can be charged and punished as drunk drivers.
That law has not, however, led Howard Myers to feel safer on local roads. He, too, takes the issue personally: In 2002, his three children were seriously injured when their car was struck by a driver who, Myers said, had smoked marijuana a short time earlier. (A police record provided by Myers showed that oncoming driver was charged with vehicular assault). Myers' children were returning from school to their home near Colorado Springs.
All three now are adults and their injuries have become chronic, Myers said. His daughter, who was driving, receives physical therapy for neck and back pain. One of his sons is recovering from a traumatic brain injury. Another son had a leg partially amputated.
"The attitude here is it's safe," Myers said. "So more people are driving under the influence.”
“If the current trends continue, non-alcohol drugs, such as marijuana, will overtake alcohol in traffic fatalities around 2020.”
Drugged driving is closing the gap with drunk driving.
The rate of traffic deaths in which drivers tested positive for non-alcohol drugs climbed from 16.6 percent in 1999 to 28.3 percent in 2010, according to the Columbia study.
Among dead male drivers, 4.0 tested positive for narcotics in 2010, up from 2.2 percent in 1999. Among female drivers killed, 7.6 percent tested positive for narcotics, up from 4.3 percent.
“If the current trends continue,” Li said, “non-alcohol drugs, such as marijuana, will overtake alcohol in traffic fatalities around 2020.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/pot-fuels-surge-drugged-driving-deaths-n22991
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Unlike urine tests, blood tests detect the active presence of THC in the bloodstream. In the case of smoked marijuana, THC peaks rapidly in the first few minutes after inhaling, often to levels above 100 ng/ml in blood plasma. It then declines quickly to single-digit levels within an hour. High THC levels are therefore a good indication that the subject has smoked marijuana recently. THC can remain at low but detectable levels of 1-2 ng/ml for 8 hours or more without any measurable signs of impairment in one-time users. In chronic users, detectable amounts of blood THC can persist for days. In one study of chronic users, residual THC was detected for 24 to 48 hours or longer at levels of 0.5 - 3.2 ng/ml in whole blood (1.0 - 6.4 ng/ml in serum) [ Skopp and Potsch].
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Note that the Drummer study found especially high culpability for drivers with 5 or more nanograms blood THC, comparable to the risk for drunken drivers. This confirms that high blood THC, indicating recent usage, is a sign of likely impairment, while lower levels, which remain for several hours, are not.
Table 2 does not include culpability data for drivers with both alcohol and THC in their system (that is, all of the marijuana drivers were alcohol-free). In general, studies agree that the combination of alcohol and THC is particularly dangerous, if anything worse than "straight" drunken driving.
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Blood THC = 5 ng: risk COMPARABLE to DUI
Blood THC = 2 ng = NO increased riskTHC + alcohol = HIGH DUI risk .....
http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/drugtestguide/drugtestdetection.html
In general, sophisticated libertarian concepts (such as, oh, "Just because the government legalizes it doesn't mean you should do it") don't work that well for minors with 2 digit IQs and heads full of THC.
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28583704&srchtxt=marijuana blood test |
