1 in 5 deaths from car accidents are now linked to marijuana use

The recent trend toward sanctioning marijuana use is puzzling on many levels. Why ban cigarette smoke in restaurants but allow outdoor dining to be tainted by marijuana smoke? Why tolerate a pervasive stench in public that rivals the impact of building a sewage treatment plant or pulp mill in the middle of town? Yet perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the recent acceptance of marijuana use is the conflict between that acceptance and long-standing concerns about driving while under the influence.

In short, increased marijuana use has led to significantly more Americans being killed on our country’s roads – because people aren’t just driving stoned, they’re driving stoned and drunk. As we approach the week of July 4th, when drunk driving deaths peak, Americans might want to ask themselves if this is a price they have to pay, and what they’re getting in return.

A recently published study in American Journal of Public Health — and conducted by researchers at Boston Medical Center, Boston University, and the University of Victoria—found that the percentage of fatal car crashes in America involving marijuana has skyrocketed since 2000. The percentage of fatal car crashes involving cannabis alone rose from 4.2 percent in 2000 to 11.2 percent in 2018. During the same period, the percentage of fatal car crashes involving cannabis and alcohol together rose from 4.8 percent to 10.3 percent. So the overall percentage of fatal car crashes involving cannabis, with or without alcohol, rose from 9.0 percent in 2000 to 21.5 percent in 2018—to more than a fifth of all fatal car crashes in America.

Monitoring the Future, a survey funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health, shows that the percentage of 19- to 30-year-olds who use marijuana daily has increased from 3.8 percent in 2000 to 7.8 percent in 2018—more than double. This exactly matches the increase in the number of deaths from car crashes involving marijuana during that time period.

These numbers only apply to 2018, however. From 2019 to 2022, deaths from car crashes involving drunk drivers increased a whopping 33 percent, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—from 10,142 in 2019 to 13,524 in 2022 (the most recent statistics available). Deaths from car crashes involving stoned drivers likely increased even more because, unlike alcohol use (which has barely changed), marijuana use has increased sharply in recent years.

From 2018 to 2022, the share of Americans who use marijuana daily rose from 7.8 percent to 11.3 percent among 19- to 30-year-olds, a 45 percent increase, and from 4.3 percent to 6.5 percent among 35- to 50-year-olds, a 51 percent increase. If the share of car crash deaths involving cannabis also rose by 45 to 51 percent—a reasonable estimate—that would mean that the share of car crash deaths involving cannabis rose from 21.5 percent in 2018 to somewhere between 31.1 and 32.5 percent in 2022, accounting for nearly a third of all car crash deaths in the U.S.

Boston University’s School of Public Health writes that “little attention has been paid to the link between alcohol and cannabis use.” It points out that the study it was involved in suggests “that cannabis and alcohol are increasingly being used together in drunk driving and that cannabis increases the likelihood of alcohol use in fatal crashes.” It adds that “as states have relaxed cannabis policies, cannabis and alcohol have increasingly been used together in driving.” In other words, the 33 percent increase in drunk driving deaths from 2019 to 2022 may have a lot to do with increased marijuana use.

Those who have advocated for marijuana legalization have often claimed that alcohol abuse would decrease if marijuana was legalized; they are not arguing that we would simply get more marijuana abuse on top of existing alcohol abuse. Yet while daily marijuana use among 19- to 30-year-olds increased threefold from 2000 to 2022 (from 3.8 to 11.3 percent), daily alcohol use has more or less stagnated (it was 4.4 percent in 2000 and 4.6 percent in 2022). So instead of replacing one substance with another, millions of Americans now consume weed daily in addition to their daily alcohol consumption, with deadly consequences on our nation’s roads.

Further evidence that there are more stoned drivers on the roads comes from the Department of Health’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System surveys of high school students. These surveys found that 53 percent of drivers who smoked marijuana in the past month reported driving under the influence of marijuana, compared to 16 percent of drivers who had had a drink in the past month and reported driving under the influence of alcohol. So about one-sixth of high school drinkers drove under the influence of marijuana, while the most Stoners did that.

Furthermore, former Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters and former Attorney General Bill Barr write that “today’s marijuana is seven to 30 times more potent than Woodstock-era weed.” Suffice it to say, this is not your grandparents’ weed.

Compounding the problem is that there is no easy-to-administer test that authorities can use to catch and punish stoned drivers. Doug Binnewies, who recently retired as sheriff of Mariposa County (which includes most of Yosemite National Park), tells me that the “ability to detect blood alcohol levels makes things very clear when it comes to catching and prosecuting drunk drivers.” In contrast, he says, “this is lacking with weed,” making prosecution “much more difficult.” In addition to the obstacles cops face in this regard, Binnewies adds that in his experience, “few prosecutors feel comfortable” handling stoned driving cases because it is so difficult to get a conviction.

In short, we have a large and growing problem with Americans driving stoned—and often stoned and drunk. That problem will only get worse if the Biden administration proceeds with its legally and constitutionally dubious plan to overrule Congress and reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III substance, a classification limited to drugs without “high potential for abuse” and with “currently accepted medical uses.” Neither of those descriptions applies to marijuana, as the Obama-era Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found in 2016 after a detailed review.

The Obama-era DEA noted that “after a scientific and medical evaluation, HHS concluded that marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United States, and does not demonstrate an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.” It further noted that “marijuana cannot be placed on a less restrictive list than Schedule II” without violating U.S. treaty obligations.

Despite these conclusions drawn by the recent Democratic administration in its final year in office, the Biden administration is determined to change marijuana to the list of trafficked substances in Schedule III. This would give the marijuana industry easier access to banking services, allow it to write off nearly $2 billion a year in business expenses (including advertising), and would represent, in the words of the Congressional Research Service, “a major shift in federal marijuana policy.”

Marijuana use robs many citizens of motivation and drive who already struggle to succeed in school, hold down a job, and function in society. It pollutes the country’s air, damaging the environment. Worst of all, it leads to the deaths of many innocent Americans who encounter stoned drivers on the road.

The “legalization” of marijuana (the psychoactive drug is still illegal under federal law) is another failed left-libertarian experiment, much like open borders and open prisons. One wonders how long “elites” and significant segments of the general public will continue to prioritize the desire of a minority of Americans to live in a senseless haze over the safety of the general population and their own loved ones on the streets of our country.