Attention! Driving Under the Influence of Pot

Driving with 5 ng or more of THC per ml of blood

First offence is a mandatory minimum $1000 fine. Second offence is a mandatory minimum of 30 days in jail. Third and all subsequent offences result in a mandatory minimum of 120 days in jail. Up to 10 years imprisonment.

What are the dangers of driving high?

Driving while high on weed or any other drug can impair your ability to drive. Smoking pot and taking drugs can affect you in many ways. Smoking pot results in slower response times, reduced memory and reduced ability to concentrate (and learn). So if you’re high and driving, here’s what might happen :

• Decrease in motor skills : You could have trouble performing routine tasks along with issues with balance and coordination.
• Slower reaction time : A driver will take longer to react to a sudden or unexpected event.
• Decreased ability to concentrate : A driver may have decreased attention span (also known as drifting attention).
• Hyper-focus : Pot can also cause a driver to focus too much on some aspects of driving while forgetting others.



Driving High in Ontario   thinkinsure


• Increased difficulty judging distances and time : It’s harder to judge distances while driving. Pot changes a driver’s sense of time and distance.

"Driving while impaired by a drug has been a criminal offence since 1925, but this offence has always been challenging to prove in court."

"Detecting and proving impairment caused by drugs is different and more complex than detecting and proving impairment caused by alcohol."

"In most jurisdictions across Canada, data sources ... tend to indicate an ongoing trend over the past ten to twelve years of DID incidents increasing as a proportion of all impaired-driving incidents, with cannabis being one of the most frequently detected class of drug among drivers."

Public Safety Canada report

Toronto DUI

 

Police stops where drivers were found to have drugs in their system have increased substantially since 2008; more than one in ten impaired driving reports are now related to drug consumption. In the same period, drug-impaired driving (DID) reported by police increased "significantly" in comparison to alcohol=impaired incidents where a significant drop has been seen over the last decade.

Police reported close to 7,500 drug-impaired driving incidents in 2021, a continuation of the trend to increasing DID incidents since 2009, when 1,407 such incidents were recorded. Starting in 2018, numbers began acceleratomg, reflecting the first full year that the use of recreational cannabis became legal in Canada.

Of all impaired driving charges laid by police, 11 percent now are representative of motorists operating a motor vehicle while impaired by drugs, compared to 1.5 percent in 2009.  Survey data show frequent cannabis users increasingly convinced the drug does not impair their driving skills. A study that found drivers injured in a DID incident had higher levels of THC (the chemical that imparts a high in cannabis) in their blood, was cited in the report.

iStock

Interestingly, Public Safety findings made note of the fact that alcohol-impaired driving offences remain more likely to lead to criminal charges in comparison to drugs. Despite drug-impaired driving incidents having increased as reported by police since cannabis legalization in 2017. The increase is reported to more likely be due to factors such as more power given to officers to detect and investigate drug consumption, along with new detection tools.

The use of new "approved drug screening equipment" during roadside stops, removing barriers that previously prevented police from demanding a driver's blood sample, and creating new criminal offences setting legal blood drug concentration limits (5ng of THC per millilitre of blood) are all cited in the report as possible explanations to a certain extent of the police-reported increase in DID cases.

"Many drugs impair one’s ability to drive. Depending on the drug type, it can reduce alertness, alter depth perception, impair concentration and attention span, slow reaction time, and affect motor skills and visual function. Many people think driving under the influence of cannabis is risk-free, and that drivers on cannabis are more cautious and driver slower. But studies show that cannabis can have a negative impact on driving, including reduced concentration and attention span, slower reaction time, and an altered perception of time and distance. Driving studies (simulated and on-road) showed drivers had increased variability in lane position, following distance and speed following cannabis use. Cannabis also affected driver ability to react to unexpected events, such as a pedestrian darting out onto the roadway."
(Source: Clearing the Smoke on Cannabis Cannabis Use and Driving – An Update. Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. Douglas J. Beirness, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, CCSA, Amy J. Porath, Ph.D., Director, Research and Policy, CCSA.)

MADD Canada

Raising Edibles Awareness

A worker packages marijuana-infused chocolate bars at Kiva Confections in Oakland, California. In Canada edible marijuana products must not be “appealing to kids” and cannot be manufactured in the same facility where regular food products are made. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

"[It isn't clear whether sweets and gummies alter the addictive potential of cannabis], but if it gets people using products at a younger age, that creates a situation of greater risk of addiction."

"[Roughly nine percent of those using marijuana will end up dependent on it, a number that rises to about 17 percent for those who begin using in their teen years]."

Susan Weiss, director of research, National Institute on Drug Abuse

"In states where marijuana is legal, pot comes in cookies, mints, gummies, protein bars — even pretzels. These commercial products are labelled with the amount of high-inducing THC. That helps medical marijuana patients get the desired dose and other consumers attune their buzz. But something about chocolate, chemists say, seems to interfere with potency testing. A chocolate labelled as 10 milligrams of THC could have far more and send someone to the emergency room with hallucinations. "The chocolate itself is affecting our ability to measure the cannabinoids within it," said David Dawson, chemist and lead researcher at CW Analytical Laboratories in Oakland, Calif., which tests marijuana."                         CBC

Marijuana brownie, demonstration in front of Mexican Senate building. (Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)

Fruit-flavoured THC 'pearls' are heading into the fall market for edible marijuana and they come with a #highforhalloween hashtag. Another edibles producer advertises a 'Scary Savings' promotion on CBD chocolates. These new seasonal promotions simply are the product of a maturing market, just like any other consumer products being advertised in promotional material geared to take consumers' attention that something new and exciting is being brought to the retail market.

Colours, shapes, flavours, what's not to like? Well, that old cautionary tale that what is available for adults holds an appealing attraction for younger people for whom the product is not meant, for health and development reasons. And, after all, the younger generation -- among whom many will go to any lengths to acquire what is denied them because if it's attractive to adults, it's irresistible to juveniles -- will in all likelihood come to harm resulting from their adventurism.

An increasingly wider variety of products are being produced in the marijuana industry with cannabis edibles in enticingly larger distribution of attractive new shapes, tastes and strengths, seductive to pot lovers. According to tracking industry data, there are reliable estimates that edibles in the United States saw sales rise 80 percent over the past two years.

Gummies, now intriguingly available in bear shapes, rainbow colours and flavours ranging from raspberry-lemonade to exotic Hawaiian fruits, are particularly well placed on consumers' shopping lists. Geared for consumption to buyers 21 and over, alarm bells are ringing that just as the vaping industry ended up attracting under-age users with their development of fruity flavours, a similar situation is on its way to reality with candy-shaped-and-tasting marijuana.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to decide which category cannabis should fall into; a food or a dietary supplement. Companies for the present, discuss how difficult it is to get their dosing just right with cannabis edibles. According to Susan Weiss, a director of research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an increasing incidence of accidental cannabis overdoses is worrying, among children in particular.

Edible marijuana samples Santa Ana, Calif. (Chris Carlson /CP/AP)

Of the colourful, flavourful new edibles, the most enthusiastic and largest group of users are those in the age 18 to 25 range, viewed as a critical time for neural development that may be affected by cannabis use. Around nine percent of people using marijuana will become dependent on it, a figure that rises to around 17 percent in those who begin using in their teens.

According to Daniel Fabricant, CEO of the Natural Products Association, former director of Dietary Supplements at the FDA, even with non-psychoactive CBD, manufacturers should err on the side of caution. They need to ask themselves: "Have you taken the steps someone would expect a reasonable corporate citizen to take?"