"Do medical-marijuana laws save lives on the road?; America’s experiment with legalizing pot yields a surprise—and a puzzle" by Chris Berdik | August 11, 2013
As legal marijuana spreads across America, mostly for medical use, anxiety about its side effects is spreading with it: What other changes will it bring? Campaigns against loosening the law tend to focus on its unknown and possibly dangerous repercussions—a surge in pot smoking, perhaps opening the door to increased use of harder drugs and to associated spikes in crime and other societal ills.
Related:
"two recent studies suggest crime rates are not higher near the facilities"
Yeah, but why let facts get in the way when an agenda-pu$hing $moke$creen is being erected?
Btw, it is the harder cocaine and heroin that drive crimes, not weed. But marijuan has health properties that chemical and pharmaceutical companies don't like, so...
Amid the heated debate, a small amount of hard data is starting to emerge. And among the most intriguing findings is a recent study suggesting that Massachusetts could enjoy an unexpected boon from last November’s vote to legalize medical marijuana: fewer deaths on our roads and highways.
Let me guess why: because stoners stayed home and sewed their butts to the couch.
A team of economists who specialize in health and risk behaviors looked at the link between marijuana laws and traffic deaths, and found that roadway fatalities dropped significantly in states after they legalized medical marijuana....
35 lives saved per year. That's 35 unique individual lives and souls.
The notion that loosening the restrictions on a drug—one that’s hardly known for improving reaction times—might actually improve traffic safety is surprising on the face of it, and the researchers are careful to say that there’s nothing safe about driving under the influence of marijuana.
No one said there was.
But as they try to unpack what might be making the difference, it is becoming clear that the knowledge emerging from America’s new experiments with marijuana law could significantly change the public conversation—giving us new data about the effects of drugs on society, and landing a familiar debate on unfamiliar new ground.
I'm all for that.
***
For more than four decades, starting in 1970, a complete prohibition on pot was the law of the land, both federally and in every state. But in 1996, California cracked the door to legalization by allowing medical marijuana, and 19 states have followed. Two states, Colorado and Washington, have fully legalized marijuana for recreational use, both last year. Meanwhile, it remains illegal under federal law to buy, sell, use, or possess pot anywhere, in any amount....
***
Marijuana legalization advocates may be eager to trumpet these results, but the research case is far from closed. Rosalie Pacula, an economist at the RAND Corporation specializing in drug policy research, says medical marijuana laws are far too varied from state to state to draw any broad conclusions about the effects of fuller legalization....
That would be the Pentagon-created, government-funded Rand Corporation, folks.
In work she’s presented at academic conferences but has yet to publish, Pacula reanalyzed the same crash incident data and found that the drop in traffic deaths was strongest in states that restrict spillover into recreational use by requiring patients to sign on to a state registry, as Massachusetts does....
What does seem clear is that as more data become available and pot prohibitions continue to fall, America’s approach to marijuana policy will have to get a lot more complicated than “just say no.” The legality of alcohol means that we have both solid information and precise laws about drinking and driving; now, as better data starts to trickle in about marijuana, what we learn will no doubt influence a variety of health and safety measures.
Yeah, what's up with that? Alcohol is far more debilitating and impairing than pot -- and it's LEGAL?
Rees and his collaborators continue to look at the effects of medical marijuana laws. In a forthcoming paper for the American Journal of Public Health, they have found correlations between medical marijuana laws and declines in suicides, and they’re also looking into a range of other effects.
I just found a prescription for you soldiers that are struggling.
Even if these results support the substitution theory argued in their traffic fatality study, with marijuana substituting for alcohol and perhaps mitigating some of its harmful effects, they acknowledge that there may be other social problems that pot makes worse than booze ever did....
Hard to imagine where or what, but whatever.
As for the substitute factor, that also smells like bullshit -- even with the pungent smell of marijuana lingering in the Globe air.
--more--"
Related:
Smoking Marijuana Causes ‘Complete Remission’ of Crohn’s Disease, No Side Effects, New Study Shows
Marijuana-Like Compounds Fight AIDS, Study Finds
Marijuana cures cancer – US government has known since 1974
Pot makes you smart!
I can see now why my agenda-pu$hing, war-promoting media is against pot.
