Even when sober, some heavy marijuana users are dangerous drivers, a new study suggests.
The bad driving appears to be isolated to those who started using pot before age 16, researchers reported Tuesday in Drug and Alcohol Dependence. The theory is that early marijuana use changes the brain, leaving people more impulsive and more apt to make rash decisions.
In the new study, which tested participants in a driving simulator, researchers from McLean Hospital in Boston found that sober cannabis users who started using the drug in their teens had more accidents, drove at higher speeds and cruised through more red lights compared to people who had never used marijuana.
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Anyone who has ever known a doper already knew this
Insurance premiums in states with it have risen at more than twice the rate of inflation. That’s the tax that everyone else has to pay.
I wouldn’t read a lot into the point about age 16 because it was a small group of 20-something stoners, they collectively have used a lot of marijuana, and we have no idea how many people in the study weren’t using marijuana by age 16 or how soon after age 16 they started using marijuana and initially how frequently. It’s possible that most of the people studied had used marijuana by age 16 and the few who didn’t hadn’t until much later or much less frequently initially. In a small study, one or two people could throw conclusions way off if they’re the only people representative of an entire group.