Driving high is still driving impaired. The failure modes may be different, but that doesn't mean someone who is high is safe to drive.
I'm not sure what the point of your comment is though, as I don't think anyone is suggesting that these drivers will actually be high while driving. Rather, they are people that use marijuana recreationally and would test positive for THC, disqualifying them from many jobs (despite the fact that urine THC levels do not corelate with how "high" someone is).
You're hyper vigilant, looking everywhere, your reactions are delayed a little such as that of an 60 year old person, and you're definitely listening to speed "limit" as the maximum, and not as the average.
As an avid marijuana user here, no, this is not the narrative that should be spread. As others have said, weed makes you incredibly impaired, just in other ways.
You are slower to process inputs, you are less likely to consider threats or obstacles as dangerous, to an extent your ability to judge distances is hindered, you are much more easily distracted (highway hypnosis, for example, becomes a huge problem - especially with blinking lights and whatnot), your ability to focus is oftentimes next to zero, causing you to be distracted often by music or other passengers in the car.
Plus, driving slowly in and of itself is a hazard - the "speed rule" exists for a reason. If everyone is going 30 mph over the speed limit on a busy highway, you are more likely to cause an accident by going the posted speed limit than if you were to go the same speed as the rest of the traffic - even though it's technically illegal.
So please, do not use marijuana and drive. Stay at home and watch Money Heist and postmates a McFlurry from McDonalds or something.
None of the states I've ever been, over the thousands of times I have partaken, with the maybe hundred different strains, with different percentages of indica/sativa, at different dosages, in different forms (flower vs. edible vs. whatever else), have ever been safe for me to operate a vehicle.
No, nobody is an exception. You are not superhuman.
Please stop normalizing this. This narrative makes it harder to change the minds of dissenters and legitimize legalization for those people that actually benefit from it.
Sorry, I don't agree. I don't think cannabis is just a drug for having fun. I'm open to scientific studies that show that car accidents increase but your experience is yours and mine is mine.
The people who have a problem with it aren't going to be able to stop legalization.
Cannabis does and will have medicinal uses. The laws and and the mindset about it are going to vastly change. Delta-8 and all the other numbers are already legal in illegal states.
What does "medicinal uses" have to do with the topic of impaired driving? There are all sorts of legal medications that will also impair someone's ability to drive.
Let us just say you are somehow different. That could be possible, and I do not want to question your experience. So great! You are not impaired.
That is simply not helpful or viable from a policy point of view.
When we regulate, we need legal tests and policy applicable to people in a very broad sense, or what we get is a mess that does us no real good.
I have known exceptions to the rule myself. People who can perform having had booze, pot, other drugs.
Always hard to tell whether their baseline, sober capability is exceptional enough to present normally with drugs on board, or their response to the drug is simply different.
Fair? I think so.
And those people can manage their use, function and pass tests too. Cannabis users cannot and that is a problem we have no easy answers to right now.
Sadly, being the exception to the rule really does us all no good when it comes to policy.
Fact is, barring very few people, using THC impairs that user.
Benadryl does the same thing, and in my State people can get a DUI on Benadryl. Sadly, they can also get one being a little too tired and having failed a THC test because they hit a binger last weekend too.
This is all a difficult problem to solve.
It should deffo be off Schedule 1
However, even a full federal legalization would leave us with the testing dilemma I described above. That might be one reason it is still on schedule.
But, say Feds went full legal. Workers comp would still be a big issue because they cannot determine fault, and best case would charge employers accordingly, meaning most would continue their harsh policy, leaving us right where this discussion started.
Opiates, booze, other things flush out and are testable in ways cannabis just is not. And that is a major league policy problem.
The effects of THC aren't an on/off kind of thing. There is a huge range of middle ground between baseline and high in the sky. You wouldn't call someone medicated on Adderall as prescribed by a doctor unfit for driving, either, would you? Yet a person self-medicating the same dosage without prescription is suddenly a danger to others. Which is insane. Same thing goes for THC IMO.
Not to mention that THC's psychoactive effects can be completely blocked by sufficient amounts of CBD and probably other compounds. You can try it yourself. Get CBD drops, ingest 100mg and try getting high. Even the most potent sativa will not work as you might expect.
I'm not sure what the point of your comment is though, as I don't think anyone is suggesting that these drivers will actually be high while driving. Rather, they are people that use marijuana recreationally and would test positive for THC, disqualifying them from many jobs (despite the fact that urine THC levels do not corelate with how "high" someone is).