Like it or not, legalization of marijuana is inevitable. There is a generational gap between people born before 1960 and afterwards, and the prohibitionist “Reefer Madness” generation has begun to die off. A fresh Gallup poll found a record “high” 50% nationwide support, with increased support from every demographic, from west to east, young and old, liberal to conservative, guys to girls. While polls will always disagree over exact numbers, Gallup is the landmark because they’ve been asking the question for the longest and most consistently. As the elderly croak, the national average has been shifting by around two percent every year for the past six years, except this year—by four percent, and support may ultimately reach 60 percent or higher. In this essay, I'm going to address one legitimate concern which people commonly have against legalization: drugged driving.
Right off the bat, I need to clarify I’m not advocating for driving impaired. But I do argue there is not much of a public safety concern, less than someone having one or two drinks at a restaurant dinner or home dinner party, which is three to four times more dangerous than smoking lucky pot at a potluck. Beer makes you delusional, Mary Jane makes you conscientious. As opposed to alcohol which causes you to drive faster and recklessly without abandon, weed causes you to drive slower and more cautiously. As opposed to alcohol which makes you think “I’m okay to drive,” marijuana makes you wait until it's true.
In conclusion, nobody wants more dangerous roads and the roads are dangerous enough, but marijuana does not pose a great risk to public safety. Since marijuana prohibition arguably drives many people to choose to drink to have a good time, it's arguable that legalization actually may make the roads safer—less drinkers, less alcoholics, less traffic fatalities; marijuana is a proven “exit drug” away from alcohol (source). As Allen St. Pierre once reminisced, “In the twenty years I’ve worked at NORML and convening dozens of major pro-reform conferences, fundraising parties and events I’ve watched bar managers, restaurant owners and hotel catering managers from coast-to-coast do major double and triple takes on our alcohol consumption bills, insisting that there must be some kind of billing error. When, in fact, if 500 cannabis consumers are attending a NORML soiree, we as a group consume 50%-75% less alcohol than similar size events.”
Right off the bat, I need to clarify I’m not advocating for driving impaired. But I do argue there is not much of a public safety concern, less than someone having one or two drinks at a restaurant dinner or home dinner party, which is three to four times more dangerous than smoking lucky pot at a potluck. Beer makes you delusional, Mary Jane makes you conscientious. As opposed to alcohol which causes you to drive faster and recklessly without abandon, weed causes you to drive slower and more cautiously. As opposed to alcohol which makes you think “I’m okay to drive,” marijuana makes you wait until it's true.
nominal = minimal
There are no real accident statistics available for marijuana because it remains detectable in blood for upwards of seven days, long after a driver has reached sobriety. An article in the Los Angeles Times notes:
Yet, law enforcement cannot place “much of the blame on the rapid growth of medical marijuana” for those accidents; medical marijuana is simply more prevalent. Those drivers were not “high” because as the NHTSA noted in 2007, “It should be emphasized that this is a prevalence study, and not a study that addresses the risk that may be presented by drug use among drivers. For many drug types, drug presence can be detected long after any impairment that might affect driving has passed” (source). A 1993 study by the NHTSA concluded, “THC is not a profoundly impairing drug. It does affect automatic information processing, even after low doses, but not to any great extent after high doses. It apparently affects controlled information processing in a variety of laboratory tests, but not to the extent which is beyond the individual’s ability to control when he is motivated and permitted to do so in real driving.”(source). According to the Drug Policy Alliance, “Surveys of fatally injured drivers show that when THC is detected in the blood, alcohol is almost always detected as well” (source), showing how it’s alcohol to blame. As Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML, correctly argues, “If we as a society are really concerned about this then we will have impairment testing that looks for the impairment of the driver, whether that’s caused by marijuana use, whether they’re hungover, whether they’re taking too many pharmaceuticals, whether they’re sleep deficient… so impairment testing is the solution, drug testing is not. To deal with the accusation there will be more stoned drivers on the road after marijuana is legalized is missing the larger point, that already today there are thousands upon thousands of people who drive cars who the government could make the argument is impaired” (source).
In conclusion, nobody wants more dangerous roads and the roads are dangerous enough, but marijuana does not pose a great risk to public safety. Since marijuana prohibition arguably drives many people to choose to drink to have a good time, it's arguable that legalization actually may make the roads safer—less drinkers, less alcoholics, less traffic fatalities; marijuana is a proven “exit drug” away from alcohol (source). As Allen St. Pierre once reminisced, “In the twenty years I’ve worked at NORML and convening dozens of major pro-reform conferences, fundraising parties and events I’ve watched bar managers, restaurant owners and hotel catering managers from coast-to-coast do major double and triple takes on our alcohol consumption bills, insisting that there must be some kind of billing error. When, in fact, if 500 cannabis consumers are attending a NORML soiree, we as a group consume 50%-75% less alcohol than similar size events.”