Pubdate: Wed, 30 Apr 2014
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2014 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Chris Selley
Page: A10
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?224 (Cannabis and Driving)

DON'T PANIC ABOUT 'HIGH DRIVING'

I don't have kids, but if I did I might have been alarmed: Listening 
to the radio on my way to the supermarket one night recently, I was 
informed that 40% of Canadian youth had driven while high on 
cannabis. It's part of a campaign from the Partnership for a 
Drug-Free Canada (PDFC). "Among young drivers, the high driving 
problem is rapidly becoming comparable to the drunk driving problem 
and it needs to be addressed with as much urgency," the PDFC website 
reports. "Twice as many teens (40%) reported driving under the 
influence of cannabis than alcohol (21%)."

The disturbing figure has gotten only minor play in media reports 
since the campaign's late-February launch. But Marc Paris, the 
group's executive director, told me the nationwide, multi-platform 
advertising campaign benefits hugely from the support of its "media 
partners," who comprise nearly all of Canada's English-and 
French-language outlets.

Something didn't seem quite right, though. We know that Canada's 
youth, nestled in prohibition's warm bosom, lead the developed world 
in marijuana use. But the latest Canadian Alcohol and Other Drug Use 
Monitoring Survey (CADUMS) report pegged lifetime cannabis use among 
15-to-24-year-olds at 34%. How could more than that be driving high?

They aren't. The PDFC is relying on a 2007 Health Canada study that 
found 39.6% of Canadians aged 15-24 reported having been a passenger, 
within the previous 12 months, in a car "driven by someone who had 
been using marijuana/ hash." (The willingness of Canadian youth to 
ride with "high drivers" is another focus of the campaign.) That 
study also states - confusingly - that "39.8% of youth reported 
driving under the influence of cannabis during the past 12 months."

But it's not 39.8% of total youths. The total sample size 694. But 
the only respondents asked about having driven under the influence of 
cannabis were those who had, within the past 12 months, (a) driven 
and (b) used cannabis. That was only 160 youths. So it's actually 
more like 9.2% of youths who might have driven while "high" - as the 
ad puts it - in the previous 12 months.

When I spoke to Mr. Paris, he didn't seem perturbed by this 
discrepancy. The point, he argued, was that too many kids are driving 
high. Undoubtedly true.

But were those 9.2% "high"? The Health Canada researchers inquired 
whether respondents had used "marijuana/hash in the previous two 
hours." Some studies have found that even a seven-milligram dose - 
about one-third of a joint - doesn't lead to significant impairment. 
Some of those 9.2% might have just had one puff.

Similarly, the 21% of youths who reported driving while "under the 
influence of alcohol" captures people who had had two or more drinks 
in the previous two hours. Some of those 21% would not be 
significantly impaired.

As another part of the campaign, the PDFC notes 25% of parents don't 
think cannabis-impaired driving is as dangerous as alcohol impaired 
driving. It sounds bad, counterintuitive. But there's plenty of 
evidence to suggest marijuana-impaired driving isn't as dangerous as 
alcohol-impaired driving, and for a fairly simple reason: As The New 
York Times put it in February, "drunken drivers tend to drive faster 
than normal and to overestimate their skills, studies have shown; the 
opposite is true for stoned drivers."

Indeed, the proper legal THC limit for drivers, and the best way to 
test it, is one of the biggest challenges to selling marijuana 
legalization. Research shows heavy users will pass roadside field 
sobriety tests much more easily than occasional users. Washington and 
Colorado mandate a maximum of five nanograms per millilitre of blood. 
But on the one hand, blood tests are slow; and on the other, heavy 
users could register that long after last consuming. Urine tests 
suffer from the same problem. In the U.S., many researchers seem to 
be concluding it's better to continue focusing enforcement efforts on 
drunk driving, while informing the public of the disputed but 
certainly extant risks of "high driving."

"Don' t drive while impaired" is an unimpeachable message, of course. 
And you can't argue that torqued statistics haven't played a positive 
role in driving down Canada's drunk-driving fatalities. But 
overreaching fearmongering also played a role in discrediting 
prohibition and the anti-drug movement in general. The Partnership 
for a Drug Free Canada would be better off addressing the problem at 
hand without blowing it out of proportion.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom