Jeffrey H. Anderson
\nTHE FEDERALIST<\/p>\n
The recent trend toward greenlighting the use of marijuana is mystifying on myriad levels.\u00a0Why ban cigarette smoke in restaurants but let outdoor dining be spoiled by marijuana smoke?\u00a0Why accept a ubiquitous public stench that rivals the effects of building a sewage treatment plant or a pulp mill in the middle of a city?\u00a0Yet perhaps the single most mystifying aspect of the recent acceptance of marijuana use has been the clash between such acceptance and longstanding concerns about impaired driving.<\/p>\n
Simply put, increased marijuana use has led to significantly more Americans being killed on our nation\u2019s roads \u2014 as people are not only driving while stoned but driving while stoned and drunk.\u00a0As we approach the week of July 4, when deaths from impaired driving\u00a0tend to peak<\/a>, Americans might want to ask themselves whether this is a price worth paying and what they\u2019re getting in return.<\/p>\n A recent study\u00a0published<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0American Journal of Public Health \u2014\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0conducted<\/a>\u00a0by scholars at Boston Medical Center, Boston University, and the University of Victoria \u2014 found that the percentage of car crash deaths in America that involved marijuana has skyrocketed since 2000.\u00a0The percentage of car crash deaths involving cannabis alone rose from 4.2 percent in 2000 to 11.2 percent in 2018.\u00a0Over that same span, the percentage of car crash deaths involving cannabis and alcohol together rose from 4.8 to 10.3 percent.\u00a0So the total percentage of car crash deaths involving cannabis, either with or without alcohol, rose from 9.0 percent in 2000 to 21.5 percent in 2018 \u2014 to more than a fifth of all car crash deaths in America.<\/p>\n Monitoring the Future, a survey funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health,\u00a0finds<\/a>\u00a0that the percentage of those ages 19 to 30 who use marijuana on a daily basis rose from 3.8 percent in 2000 to 7.8 percent in 2018 \u2014 more than doubling.\u00a0That closely tracks the rise in car crash deaths involving marijuana over that period.<\/p>\n Those numbers, however, are only through 2018.\u00a0From 2019 to 2022, deaths from drunk-driver car crashes rose a whopping 33 percent \u2014 from\u00a010,142\u00a0in 2019 to\u00a013,524<\/a>\u00a0in 2022 (the most recent statistics available), according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.\u00a0Deaths from stoned driver car crashes likely increased even more, given that, unlike alcohol use (which hasn\u2019t changed much), pot use has risen greatly over the past few years.<\/p>\n From 2018 to 2022, the percentage of Americans who use marijuana daily\u00a0rose<\/a> from 7.8 percent to 11.3 percent, a 45 percent spike, among 19-to-30-year-olds and from 4.3 to 6.5 percent, a 51 percent spike, among 35-to-50-year-olds.\u00a0If the portion of car crash deaths involving cannabis also rose by between 45 and 51 percent \u2014 a reasonable estimate \u2014 that would mean that the portion of car crash deaths involving cannabis rose from 21.5 percent in 2018 to somewhere between 31.1 and 32.5 percent in 2022, approaching one-third of all car crash deaths in the U.S.<\/p>\n Boston University\u2019s School of Public Health\u00a0writes<\/a>\u00a0that \u201clittle attention has been given to the connection between alcohol and cannabis use.\u201d\u00a0It notes that\u00a0the study<\/a>\u00a0in which it was involved suggests \u201cthat cannabis and alcohol are increasingly being used together when it comes to impaired driving, and that cannabis increases the likelihood of alcohol use in crash deaths.\u201d\u00a0It adds that \u201cas states have loosened cannabis policies, cannabis and alcohol have increasingly been used together when driving.\u201d\u00a0In other words, the 33 percent increase in drunk-driving deaths from 2019 to 2022 may have a lot to do with increased pot use.<\/p>\n Those who have pushed for marijuana legalization have often suggested that alcohol abuse will fall if marijuana is legalized; they don\u2019t argue that we\u2019ll simply get more pot abuse on top of existing alcohol abuse.\u00a0Yet while daily marijuana use\u00a0increased<\/a>\u00a0roughly three-fold among 19-to-30-year-olds from 2000 to 2022 (from 3.8 to 11.3 percent), daily alcohol use more or less flatlined (it was 4.4 percent in 2000 and 4.6 percent in 2022).\u00a0\u00a0So rather than substituting one substance for another, millions of Americans have now added daily weed to daily booze, yielding deadly results on our nation\u2019s roads.<\/p>\n Further evidence of there being more stoned drivers on the roads is provided by the Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System surveys of high school students.\u00a0These surveys\u00a0find<\/a>\u00a0that 53 percent of drivers who\u2019d smoked pot in the past month said they\u2019d driven while under the influence of marijuana, compared to 16 percent of drivers who\u2019d had a drink in the past month and said they\u2019d driven under the influence of alcohol.\u00a0\u00a0So about one-sixth of high school drinkers drove under the influence while\u00a0most<\/em>\u00a0pot smokers did.<\/p>\n In addition, former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy John Walters and former Attorney General Bill Barr\u00a0write<\/a> that \u201ctoday\u2019s marijuana packs seven to 30 times the punch of Woodstock-era weed.\u201d\u00a0Suffice it to say, this isn\u2019t your grandparents\u2019 grass.<\/p>\n Compounding the problem, there\u2019s no easily administered test that the authorities can use to catch and punish stoned drivers.\u00a0Doug Binnewies, who recently retired as the sheriff of Mariposa County (which encompasses most of Yosemite National Park), tells me that when it comes to catching and prosecuting drunk drivers, the \u201cability to present the level of alcohol in the blood makes it very cut and dried.\u201d\u00a0In contrast, he says, \u201cThis is lacking for weed,\u201d which makes it \u201cmuch more difficult to prosecute.\u201d\u00a0In addition to the obstacles faced by cops in this regard, Binnewies adds that, in his experience, \u201cfew prosecutors are comfortable handling\u201d cases involving stoned drivers because of the challenges in securing a conviction.<\/p>\n In short, we have a large and growing problem of Americans driving while stoned \u2014 and often while stoned and drunk.\u00a0This problem will only get worse if the Biden administration goes forward with\u00a0its legally and constitutionally dubious plan<\/a>\u00a0to overrule Congress and reschedule marijuana as a Schedule III substance, a designation\u00a0limited<\/a>\u00a0to drugs without \u201ca high potential for abuse\u201d and with \u201ca currently accepted medical use.\u201d\u00a0Neither of these descriptions applies to marijuana, as the Obama-era Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) determined in 2016 after\u00a0a detailed review<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Obama-era DEA\u00a0observed<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cafter a scientific and medical evaluation \u2026 HHS concluded that marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.\u201d\u00a0It further noted that \u201cmarijuana cannot be placed in a schedule less restrictive than schedule II\u201d without violating U.S. treaty obligations.<\/p>\n Despite such conclusions, drawn by the most recent Democrat administration during its final year in office \u2014 the Biden administration is\u00a0determined<\/a>\u00a0to change marijuana\u2019s designation to Schedule III.\u00a0This would grant Big Marijuana\u00a0easier access<\/a>\u00a0to banking services, allow it to write off business expenses (including for advertising) to the tune of nearly\u00a0$2 billion<\/a>\u00a0a year, and\u00a0constitute<\/a>, in the words of the Congressional Research Service, \u201ca major shift in the federal government\u2019s policy on marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n Pot use saps the motivation and vigor of a great many citizens who already struggle to succeed in school, hold down a job, and make their way in society.\u00a0It pollutes the nation\u2019s air and thereby degrades the environment.\u00a0Worst of all, it leads to the deaths of many innocent Americans who encounter stoned drivers on the road.<\/p>\n Marijuana \u201clegalization\u201d (the psychoactive drug is still\u00a0illegal<\/a>\u00a0under federal law) is yet another failed leftist\/libertarian experiment, much like open borders and open jails.\u00a0One wonders how long \u201celites,\u201d and significant portions of the general public, will continue to prioritize the desire of a minority of Americans to live in a mindless haze over the safety of the wider citizenry and their own loved ones on our nation\u2019s roads.<\/p>\n