Skydiving without a Parachute - Abstract
Colorado has reported no increases in citations for Driving under the Influence of Drugs (DUID) since commercialization of marijuana in the state. That is no surprise, since Colorado does not issue any citations for DUID. The state has a single citation for Driving under the Influence (DUI), irrespective of cause, and does not separate alcohol, drugs, or a combination of alcohol and drugs in any of their data systems. There is therefore no means to determine the highway safety impact of the state’s current widespread and increasing use of marijuana. Some view Colorado as an experiment in marijuana legalization, but any scientific experiment requires both a control of input variables and a measurement of outcomes. Colorado does neither, and reports tax revenue from its marijuana “experiment,” but little else.
Colorado attempted to deal with DUID due to marijuana long after marijuana’s commercialization began. Policy discussions that were conducted to deal with DUID were therefore dominated by marijuana users, growers, dealers, and their organized supporters. Consequently, Colorado now has the weakest DUID laws in the nation, as shown by the comparison of laws shown in this report.
Legalizing and commercializing marijuana prior to having effective laws in place to identify and deal with its consequences is akin to skydiving without a parachute.
Because of the great differences between alcohol and marijuana, DUI laws developed to deal with alcohol-impaired driving are ill-suited to dealing with marijuana-impaired driving. The following recommendations to deal with marijuana-impaired driving as well as other forms of drugged driving should be considered before legalizing or commercializing marijuana.