12 ms·
Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
- jjice 11mo agoFeels like a low sample size, but I'm not statistician or doctor. That said, almost everyone I know that consumes THC has no qualms driving while doing it, and many of them also at work. It's a huge peeve of mine.
- losteric 11mo agoWow, pretty much no one I know drives under any influence regardless what they use. I wonder how many of these people were under the influence of alcohol and other substances.
- DontchaKnowit 11mo agoThere is a very common sentiment among weed users that it doesnt really count as far as driving goes. Stoners will be repulsed and outraged by drunk drivers and then think nothing about going for a "blunt ride"
- SecretDreams 11mo agoEven though their sentiment is wrong, I get why they would feel that way. Marginally drunk vs marginally high certainly feel* very different in how they would impact my own ability to drive. That said, I don't do either. I also wouldn't take any amount of weed while working, but I'd feel comfortable having a beer during lunch if appropriate (work lunch/celebrate, e.g.).
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- zoklet-enjoyer 11mo agoI drove high a few times when I was younger and I had to set my cruise control to 25mph to make sure I was going fast enough haha never again. I just use before bed now or occasionally during the day if I know I won't have to drive anywhere.
- seizethecheese 11mo agoMy friend group in college were heavy weed users, and generally all of them drove while high. I remember one saying he enjoyed it because he felt like he was driving a space ship. I asked if he still thought it was safe to drive, given that impression, and he said yes.
- sa-code 11mo agoThe number of times I've heard "I'm good" honestly breaks my heart. Only to have people call me "Hermoine" etc (I am a straight cis man). I wonder what's the best way to talk about this
- lostmsu 11mo agoReport to police anonymously and have them stopped might be an option. If you can't convince them the money might.
- dragonwriter 11mo ago> Feels like a low sample size Its not a sample, it is the whole universe of analysis. (If you treat it as a sample of, say, US drivers killed in accidents in the same period, then errors due to sample size are probably the least of its problems.)
- moefh 11mo agoWe don't know that. We don't even know if there's selection bias. The article says the research was "focusing on 246 deceased drivers who were tested for THC", and that the test usually happens when autopsies are performed. It doesn't say if autopsies are performed for all driver deaths, and it also doesn't say what exactly is "usually". If (for example) autopsy only happens when the driver is suspected of drug use, then there's a clear selection bias. Note that this doesn't mean the study is useless: they were able to see that legalization of cannabis didn't have impact on recreational use.
- dyauspitr 11mo agoEveryone I know, a pretty successful group of people, have no qualms driving when stoned.
- djeastm 11mo agoThat's genuinely frightening and possibly explains a lot about people on the road these days.
- SilverElfin 11mo agoI’m not surprised so many deceased drivers were under the influence of THC. I see people smoking and vaping at stoplights all the time. I am however, surprised this study claims legalization didn’t change the rate. Anecdotally, on the west coast, I’ve seen far more of this, and also people casually smoking in public spaces (parks or train stations or whatever) since legalization.
- didibus 11mo agoThat could mean that THC is not causative, just coincidence.
- fn-mote 11mo agoObviously the study is not claiming that rates of THC use in general remain the same. One possible reason: the “new recruit” people who are now willing to use cannabis BECAUSE it is legal are also rule-following by being willing to stay off the road after using it. Perfectly plausible to me.
- delecti 11mo agoAre they necessarily smoking and vaping cannabis though? My vape is visually pretty similar to a tobacco vape, and vaping doesn't usually have much odor either way (unless it's scented vape juice, but I'm not terribly worried about cognitive impairment from bubble gum).
- SilverElfin 11mo agoAs far as my experience goes, yes. I can tell by the scent. And actually at stoplights I can smell it even with windows rolled up.
- gitaarik 11mo agoJust that you see it more doesn't necessarily mean it happens more
- iLoveOncall 11mo agoAnd what share of the remaining 60% were killed by the initial 40%?
- kube-system 11mo agoAnd likewise, what share of that 40% were killed by the other 60%? Fault was not evaluated here.
- neoCrimeLabs 11mo agoI am curious what percentge of the general populous test positive for THC. It would give better context to a dead drivers testing positive for THC.
- iLoveOncall 11mo ago> It would give better context to a dead drivers testing positive for THC. No it wouldn't. People make those excuses because it's weed, but you would have never posted that on an article about alcohol.
- root_axis 11mo ago> you would have never posted that on an article about alcohol Well of course not, as the two drugs have completely different intoxication side effects.
- neoCrimeLabs 11mo agoWasn't so much looking for an excuse, so much as more information. Why did you automatically assume the point of bias?
- fn-mote 11mo agoNo need to be judgmental about statistics. They are just facts. A similar result about alcohol would be the (hypothetical) statement that the rate of drunk drivers in fatal accidents was constant before and after the enactment of Prohibition. I do agree that the fact that fatal THC% stays constant before and after legalization is a surprise.
- watwut 11mo agoIt absolutely would. If 40% of people test positive for THC, then this would mean there is no effect. I find it unlikely 40% of people test positive for THC, but yes, it does matter.
- gpm 11mo agoThat wouldn't actually mean no effect, you need 40% of people driving to test positive for it to be no effect. It's unlikely the population driving is equivalent to the population at large - for one there's a set of responsible people who won't drive while high. For another weed use isn't randomly distributed through the population but correlated with certain subsets, which probably have a non-average rate of driving just by coincidence. (Not that it really matters since I don't buy for a second that anywhere near 40% of people/people-driving are high at any given time. I also don't put much faith in numbers in the abstract of a a yet-to-be-published study...)
- epistasis 11mo agoBased on the headline, I was guessing it was any amount of positivity, and may be close to the population level, but it's actually impairment levels of THC: > In a review of 246 deceased drivers, 41.9% tested positive for active THC in their blood, with an average level of 30.7 ng/mL — far exceeding most state impairment limits. Since COVID in CA, it feels like driving has become far more dangerous with much more lawlessness regarding excessive speeding and running red lights, going into the left lane to turn right in front of stopped cars, all sorts of weird things. But I can't tell if my anecdotes are significant. It seems that Ohio's impaired drivers have been consistent through the past six years though.
- QuadmasterXLII 11mo agoreading the paper, I’d say this is a case of hoofbeats meaning horses- people are just getting high and crashing.. Although, this seems like a case where the average is very vulnerable to a ‘spiders georg’ type distortion, especially because of the tolerances people build.
- iLoveOncall 11mo agoWow, this is amazing, you managed to read a paper that is not published? Impressive!
- Y_Y 11mo ago> "average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
- Benjammer 11mo ago>Since COVID in CA, it feels like driving has become far more dangerous with much more lawlessness regarding excessive speeding and running red lights, going into the left lane to turn right in front of stopped cars, all sorts of weird things NYC has had the same effect since COVID, and over the last year or two it's gotten to the point where every single light at every busy intersection in Manhattan you get 2-3 cars speeding through the red light right after it turns. I bike ride a lot so I'm looking around at drivers a lot, and for the most part the crazy drivers seem to be private citizens in personal cars, not Uber or commercial/industrial drivers.
- cess11 11mo agoIs there a full study somewhere? I'd expect them to screen for other psychoactive substances as well, of which I see no mention here.
- tokai 11mo agoNo, only conference abstract available. https://journals.lww.com/journalacs/fulltext/2025/11001/trauma_burn_critical_care.30.aspx https://journals.lww.com/journalacs/fulltext/2025/11001/trau...
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- teddy-smith 11mo agoWhenever you think to yourself "People couldnt be that stupid, right?" read this study and plan accordingly.
- 3eb7988a1663 11mo agoWish the paper were available - would love to know the percentage with alcohol. The other question I have - my prior is that a bad driver (tired, drunk, high) is something like 70:30 odds of killing themselves vs some innocent bystander dying because of their actions. I have anecdotally heard of several sad tales where some guy is on his Nth DUI and kills an entire family, while he walks away from the accident without a scratch. Meaning are the rates of fatalities involving THC actually higher, but the detectably inebriated person managed to walk away without dying.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- tokai 11mo agoAn issue with having the legal limit at ~2-5ng/ml is that it makes habitual users be over the limit if they have smoked recently or not.[0] Making the prohibition seem unserious to some, not about safety but about punitive control, and in turn making it matter less if you smoke and drive as you are taking the risk of getting into trouble in any case. The impairments of driving under the influence of alcohol have been extensively studied, but unless I have overlooked the literature it seems that the same investigations have not been carried out with THC. [0] «Blood THC >2 ng/mL, and possibly even THC >5 ng/mL, does not necessarily represent recent use of cannabis in frequent cannabis users.»; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376871620303422 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03768...
- iLoveOncall 11mo agoOpening the article would have allowed you to see that the average was 30.7 ng/mL, it's in the very first bullet point!
- tokai 11mo agoIf you calmed down and stopped snapping at everyone, you might understand that I'm writing about how the law and a lack of studies could make some people more willing to drive high. You are substantially diminishing the quality of the discussion here.
- adgjlsfhk1 11mo agousing a mean rather than median is fairly odd here. a mean is pretty much worthless without knowing distribution shape.
- dragonwriter 11mo agoThe average (presumably arithmetic mean, though it could technically be any of a wide variety of measures) is not particulatly interesting, the median specifically would be more interesting, as a single figure.
- 11mo ago
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- witte 11mo agoThis feels like we’re missing a dimension or threeve, the one that comes to mind immediately would be whether or not the deceased driver was at fault for the incident.
- kube-system 11mo agoYeah, drug use is also influenced by social and economic status, which also influences driving risks. People of lower socioeconomic status drive less safe cars on less safe roads for longer commutes. This is something valid to evaluate with a drug like THC which is detectable long after use. It would be nice to see the distribution of levels detected and not just the average.
- Chris2048 11mo ago> People of lower socioeconomic status drive less safe cars on less safe roads for longer commutes. But can't you account for 'type of car', 'type of road', 'commute length' as direct variables pretty easily without dipping into social/economic backgrounds?
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- kube-system 11mo agoThe socioeconomics of the situation is why I'm questioning it, not what I think would be best measured. Although it certainly isn't "easy" to measure all of this directly; there are thousands of that constitute the type of driving scenario that someone might engage in. Even just "type of road" isn't a single thing, it's hundreds of things.
- reactordev 11mo agoJust noting there’s a difference between THC in your system and THC in your blood. THC leaves the bloodstream after your high. Goes into fat cells and other areas to be broken down and processed (up to a month) later. Having it in the bloodstream after an accident means they were intoxicated at the time according to science. Whether their CB1 receptors were letting it through is another matter. I can smoke a lot of weed and not “feel high” yet I would test off the charts on this test. For drunk drivers it’s rather easy to assess whether someone is impaired. With marijuana it’s not. So until we have a valid method of testing if someone is “too stoned to drive” we have to push back on any attempt to classify marijuana users as ineligible to drive.
- xienze 11mo ago> So until we have a valid method of testing if someone is “too stoned to drive” we have to push back on any attempt to classify marijuana users as ineligible to drive. You’re not really going to win anybody over to the legalization side when you basically say that people can consume as much THC as they want and drive without any penalties because of testing limitations.
- Arainach 11mo agoOn the contrary: we should test for the actual issue (impairment) rather than an arbitrary number.
- cubefox 11mo agoCould this mean that THC is more dangerous for vehicle safety than alcohol?
- pixl97 11mo agoWith this information alone, no we cannot tell. For example if we took random samples of the population and tested them for marijuana usage, what percentage would test positive? Next, this study is only talking about marijuana testing, how many of the same group also tested positive for alcohol (or other impairing drugs). Lets make up fake numbers and say 60% of total fatalities had alcohol or other impairing drugs and the overlap between them and marijuana use was 80% then marijuana is rather insignificant. We have to have all the details so we don't fall into a base rate fallacy.
- dragonwriter 11mo agoWell, its the wrong universe of analysis to make that claim and there is no comparative measure of alcohol exposure in the same universe of analysis so it also fails to provide a basis for any alcohol/THC comparison, so, no?
- reop2whiskey 11mo agoIt is entirely possible THC is more dangerous for vehicle safety than alcohol and that wouldn’t surprise me. But based on this study alone? No.
- amazingman 11mo agoCant wait for this tissue-thin abstract to drive weeks and years of anti-cannabis nonsense.
- Youden 11mo agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45494730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45494730
- 8organicbits 11mo agoThe lack of change after legalization of recreational use is interesting. How many deaths related to medical use versus (previously illegal but decriminalized) recreational use?
- loeg 11mo agoI don't think the user population changes much whether it's illegal, "medical," or legal.
- ck2 11mo agoI live in a "working poor" neighborhood 50% of the people on this street get stoned before driving to work, every single day dope isn't even legal here and even if it was DUI is wildly illegal We can only cure this if we get serious about penalties because we can't undo murder and injuries How about first time warning, second time weekend in jail, third time week in jail, fourth time month in jail, fifth time year in prison
- dragonwriter 11mo ago> We can only cure this if we get serious about penalties Saying that in the country with world-leading mass incarceration mostly due to its decades long “war on drugs” which has very much not cured drug problems is a perfect example of putting ideological preconceptions ahead of reality.
- wredcoll 11mo ago> Saying that in the country with world-leading mass incarceration mostly due to its decades long “war on drugs” which has very much not cured drug problems is a perfect example of putting ideological preconceptions ahead of reality. I wish I could emphasize this even more. There are some situations where certain types of punishments in certain situations will achieve societal behavior change. There's a lot more where it doesn't and people absolutely to apply any kind of scientific thought to it.
- dragonwriter 11mo ago> There are some situations where certain types of punishments in certain situations will achieve societal behavior change. > There's a lot more where it doesn't Or, at least, not the behavior change you are hoping for.
- wredcoll 11mo agoHmm, that last sentence is really missing a "refuse to"
- ck2 11mo ago
- codr7 11mo agoI bet 100% of them had been drinking water recently.
- blell 11mo agoRemember when people in this web site would blame the recent increase in accidents on the supposed cognitive decline from COVID and how hooked we are on our phones because of the evil tech companies.
- leke 11mo agoMy question is, what is the difference in vehicle death mortality since cannabis was legalized in those parts of the country. If it's about the same, it just tells me that cannabis is a very popular drug.
- wiml 11mo agoFrom what I understand, the effect of legalization (or decriminalization) on the amount of cannabis use is not straightforward at all. You'd have to factor that in somehow.
- Someone 11mo ago> In a review of 246 deceased drivers, 41.9% tested positive for active THC in their blood, with an average level of 30.7 ng/mL — far exceeding most state impairment limits. That could mean they all had levels far exceeding most state impairment limits, but it also could mean most of them had trace levels, while a few had levels way above 30.7 ng/mL. So, it says fairly little. Also (FTA) “Researchers analyzed coroner records from Montgomery County in Ohio from January 2019 to September 2024, focusing on 246 deceased drivers who were tested for THC following a fatal crash”. That means there could be selection bias at play. Finally, no mention is made on the levels of THC in the general population of of those driving cars. Both _could_ be equal or even higher. I’m not sure one should blame (only) the researchers for these statements, though. Chances are they didn’t intend to find out whether THC use is a major cause of vehicle crashes, but only in whether legalizing THC use changed those numbers, and someone managed to get some more juicy quotes from them.
- thrill 11mo ago“Finally, no mention is made on the levels of THC in the general population of those driving cars.” How do you propose gathering that particular data?
- Aurornis 11mo agoOne helpful data point is that only about 20% of people over age 12 report any THC use at all in the prior year. Some surveys have even lower numbers, around 1 in 8, but let’s take the highest number for the sake of this comparison. So the median THC level is 0%. Having 40% of people register high enough levels of THC to pass an impairment threshold is a remarkably high number no matter how you look at it.
- VanTheBrand 11mo agoI think there is definable a connection between cannabis use and auto accidents. It slows your reaction time and that’s a known factor with accidents. That said, substance use data is notoriously underreported[1] in surveys. So that 20% data point is not very helpful. Also 12-15 year olds are bringing that number down in your data and also can’t drive making it even less useful for comparison. [1]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089085672300045X#:~:text=Self%2Dreports%20underestimated%20the%20prevalence,with%20infrequent%20self%2Dreported%20use. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089085672...
- bobro 11mo agoOne useful point of comparison here would be the percent of the driving population overall who have some THC in their system in the same way as these researchers are measuring it. I wouldn’t guess that 40% of drivers would test positive for recent THC use, but I can’t understand the 40% number here without knowing the percent for the overall population.
- Aurornis 11mo agoThe number of people who use any THC at all isn’t even close to 40% thought. The highest survey numbers I found had 20% of people reporting any use, even once, in the past year. There’s no way to normalize a result of 40% of a population sample having significant THC concentrations. That’s way higher than any conceivable sample of the general population.
- stonogo 11mo agoThere sure is, when the survey question boils down to "have you committed a Federal crime?"
- supersparrow 11mo ago“Unaffected by legalisation” - so at least there’s more proof than outlawing drugs doesn’t work.
- Aurornis 11mo agoSome helpful context: The number of Americans age 12 and older who report using any marijuana product at least once in the past year is around 20% (Source https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-use-disorder-daily-9cec33f3ac513123c8ffc8b8b3141877 https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-use-di... ) if I use one of the highest reported use numbers I can find. Even if you dismiss all of the questions brought up in these comments like the use of mean levels instead of median, not accounting for tolerance of habitual users, or debates about the threshold for impairment, the 40% number in this study is without a doubt far higher than the number of people who have detectable levels of THC in their blood at any given time. I see a lot of attempts to downplay the result of this study in the comments, but 40% having significant THC in their blood is a stunning statistic no matter how you look at it.
- wiml 11mo agoThe number of people who report using it is only a rough proxy for the number of people who are using it, though.
- jeremyjh 11mo agoI think its much more significant than the studies done by potheads who think they are cool to drive.
- pretzellogician 11mo agoYes, very rough. Marijuana still being illegal at the federal level, and often illegal at the state level, means it's not always in your best interest to self-report. For example, in my doctor's questionnaires. "Have you used illegal drugs in the last year?" I'm always going to say no. I don't trust security and privacy enough to say otherwise. And yes, for HN scrapers, I'll mention this is all hypothetical.
- barbs 11mo agoNot sure how much it differs from the US, but in Australia disclosing previous drug use is unlikely to provoke any response from authorities. The main drug crimes are possession and selling AFAIK, not using.
- PlunderBunny 11mo agoHere in New Zealand we’ve just started road-side testing for drug-driving [0] 0. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/581951/first-day-of-roadside-drug-testing-in-wellington-gets-positive-feedback-police-say https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/581951/first-day-of-road...
- skywhopper 11mo agoThis stat beggars belief. I think the headline is phrased incorrectly, and the overall stat is misleading. The actual stat is only from dead drivers who were tested for THC. Researchers analyzed coroner records from Montgomery County in Ohio from January 2019 to September 2024, focusing on 246 deceased drivers who were tested for THC following a fatal crash. When autopsies are performed, drug screening is typically part of the process. The unanswered and unaddressed questions here are, how often and why were the THC tests administered? The article says that’s standard for autopsies. But how often are autopsies conducted on deceased drivers? I would be truly surprised if it’s 100%. In fact, I would expect it to happen only in cases where there was some suspicion of intoxication. In which case, this finding isn’t very surprising after all.
- derriz 11mo agoThere is no mention that these drivers were ONLY impaired by weed. But I can’t believe a paper would not look at the confounders. I know quite a few who are not regular smokers but will imbibe after a few beers if it’s being passed around. Also weed is popular with consumers of stimulants. Without knowing the possible confounders, this statistic tells you very little.
- LorenPechtel 11mo agoIf you do an adequate job of looking for confounders you'll likely torpedo the study because it will turn out to be something already known.
- mchusma 11mo agoSelf driving cars can’t come fast enough to save lives. I’d love to have states start today at cracking down on unsafe drivers of all kinds. I suspect that converting just 10% of miles to self driving + getting rid of 10% most unsafe drivers would reduce fatalities 50%.
- asdff 11mo ago50% of fatalities are from the 8% of the driving population that refuses to wear a seatbelt. https://www.trafficsafetymarketing.gov/safety-topics/seat-belt-safety https://www.trafficsafetymarketing.gov/safety-topics/seat-be...
- hermannj314 11mo agoI need to know the rates in the general driving population before I can assume driving high is dangerous.
- pogue 11mo agoRepost: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45494730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45494730
- theturtle 11mo ago[dead]
- ChrisMarshallNY 11mo agoI have a friend that's a mechanic. He says that he gets cars in that reek so bad, he can smell them from three bays away. I suspect that we'll soon be seeing a rapid "pullover-test," and that will probably knock that stuff down.
- throw20251220 11mo agoThat may mean a lot of things. Maybe non-smokers got good at eliminating people who recently smoked.
- scythe 11mo ago>An average level of 30.7 ng/mL generally means those people must have consumed marijuana at some time close to driving. Averages do not work that way! The average of 48, 48, 48, 3 and 3 is 30. The study findings remain interesting but the actual proportion of impaired drivers may be less than 40%.
- IAmGraydon 11mo agoDoes anyone else constantly smell weed while driving around? Several times per week I find myself behind a car that wreaks so bad of weed that I can clearly smell it driving a few car lengths behind. I have to wonder…if so many people are smoking enough to smell it in another car while moving, exactly how many people on the road are high?
- mperham 11mo agoPhones are by far the biggest source of dangerous driving.
- hereme888 11mo agoSerum levels of THC do not correlate with degree of impairment. It's not linear, like alcohol. I thought this was common knowledge among physicians who have studied the subject.
- Merrill 11mo agoRather than trying to draw policy conclusions from an epidemiological study like this, wouldn't it be more accurate to give drivers measured amounts of THC, put them in a driving simulator, and measure their performance?
- kmnc 11mo agoKind of a bad test since people know the goal is to drive well, most accident happen when people are complacent.
- morpheos137 11mo agoThe push for marijuana normalization has been one of the stupidest things in recent memory. It's a drug as harmful as alcohol or nicotine if misused.
- flaminHotSpeedo 11mo ago> Researchers analyzed coroner records from Montgomery County in Ohio from January 2019 to September 2024, focusing on 246 deceased drivers who were tested for THC following a fatal crash. This paper would need to go into way more detail to be at all useful. 40% is a staggering number, which makes me suspect that all it measures is Montgomery County police's pretty good track record for deciding when to test someone for THC during an autopsy
- laughing_man 11mo ago>The rate of drivers who tested positive for THC did not change significantly before or after legalization (42.1% vs. 45.2%), indicating that legal status did not influence the behavior of those who chose to drive after use. That being the case, I'm not sure what the policy prescription should be here, if any.
- flaminHotSpeedo 11mo ago> 103 drivers (41.9%) overall tested positive for THC, with yearly rates ranging from 25.7% to 48.9%. The statistics for this seem suspect at best, I'll believe it once it's peer reviewed
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- econ 11mo agoYou wouldn't expect sober people to be more likely to die.
- sanex 11mo agoI remember reading that in an accident with one party intoxicated and the other not, the intoxicated party is more likely to survive because they are more relaxed and can take an impact better. But of course sober people are less likely to get into single car fatality causing accidents I'm sure.
- sfink 11mo agoDon't be so judgemental, dying is traumatic! Who wouldn't want a little somethin' to take the edge off?
- michaelteter 11mo agoThis seems like an intentionally misleading title, since they don't mention that the study was for one county (Montgomery County) in Ohio, which is basically just Dayton, OH and surrounding rural area - < 600k people. I'm sure you can pick other counties in the US which have either very high representation of THC users or very low representations. Without knowing how other counties score in terms of driver fatalities and THC, this is not really very useful. To me it sounds like an effort to paint THC as big and scary. But in my experience living in a few large cities, weed is rare - but lots of people go out, drink, and drive home one or more times per week. ScienceDaily goes even further by rounding up to 50% and burying the location halfway down the summarization. "Nearly half of drivers killed in crashes had THC in their blood THC-impaired driving deaths are soaring, and legalization hasn’t slowed the trend. Date: October 5, 2025 Source: American College of Surgeons Summary: Over 40% of fatal crash victims had THC levels far above legal limits, showing cannabis use before driving remains widespread. The rate didn’t drop after legalization, suggesting policy changes haven’t altered risky habits. Experts warn that the lack of public awareness around marijuana’s dangers behind the wheel is putting lives at risk." Unless they publish who funded the study, I'm skeptical that the alcohol industry might be involved. It's absolutely in their best interest to paint marijuana as the devil (and take attention away from alcohol). Obviously nobody should be driving with any impairment, but people do - driving tired, texting, even talking to passengers and turning their heads to look at the passengers while they talk! (Really, why??? I see people doing this all the time.)
- nateb2022 11mo agoTo give some statistical context, as of 2023, about 16.11% of people in the US have used cannabis in the past year; per that same dataset, about 16.53% of Ohio residents. [1] Given that Ohio’s usage metrics align closely with the national mean, I think it's fair to use the state as a proxy for broader domestic trends. Per more Pew Research data, also from 2023, Ohio seems to have an average, if not a less than average, concentration of cannabis dispensaries, compared to other states where CBD products were legal. Montgomery County, OH is located in the bottom-left quarter of Ohio, and sits in a region with lower dispensary density than many comparable U.S. districts. [2] Given that usage metrics mirror the national mean despite a lower-than-average retail presence, I think this dataset is a pretty fair "middle america" benchmark. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/723822/cannabis-use-within-one-year-us-adults/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/723822/cannabis-use-with... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/29/most-americans-now-live-in-a-legal-marijuana-state-and-most-have-at-least-one-dispensary-in-their-county/sr_24-02-29_dispensaries_1-png/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/29/most-amer...
- golem14 11mo agoIt will be interesting to read the actual study when it comes out. Interesting questions: * What is the baseline of consumption / THC level? * what was the alcohol level in decesased drivers ? (e..g how many people only had alcohol, how many only THC, how many had both, how many had nothing. * Are there other test scenarios where THC screening is mandatory that could help getting to the baseline ? Are there ways to get an approximate answer from sewers, like they did for Covid?
- m463 11mo agoI saw this and it was too funny: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study (facs.org) 281 points by bookofjoe 15 hours ago | flag | hide | 420 comments =============
- graycat 11mo agoI have it on good authority and a lot of data that over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for recently having (i) breathed air containing oxygen, (ii) drank tap water (iii) were wearing shoes, (iv) had used those shoes to get to the car, ...
- bloppe 11mo agoAnybody who's smoked a lot of weed knows that THC tolerance works very differently from alcohol tolerance. If you've been ripping dabs every couple hours for the last month, you might be well above the legal limit and barely feel different at all. On the other hand, if you haven't smoked in a year and take a single hit of a modern joint, you could be floored. I'm not sure how THC intoxication could be measured, but blood THC concentration feels like an incredibly crude metric compared to BAC.
- Ragnarockooo 11mo agoSmoking weed is terrible for you. Either drink or do psychedelics.
- kenfichtler 11mo ago[dead]
- casey2 11mo agoThe sign of a brittle system is constant feeling to restrict user freedom
- quantumcotton 11mo agoDoes this actually mean anything or correlate with anything? Or does this basically say that 40% of Americans not driving age smoke weed or use edibles or THC of some kind at this point monthly? I don't but it seems pretty likely to not be that far off.