Because CT scans and MRIs cannot yet detect definitive biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, cognitive evaluations are usually performed by doctors and are therefore subject to error and bias. Photograph: WAYNE LAWRENCEĪbout 15 years ago, Charles Duffy, then a neurobiology researcher at the University of Rochester Medical Center, set out to build a device that could quickly and effectively assess cognitive impairment. Renée Borden is the New York state coordinator for a group of elite cops known as drug recognition experts. Black people are also significantly more likely to get pulled over and more likely to be searched once they're on the side of the road, but less likely to have drugs in the car. People of all races use pot at similar rates, but Black people are about four times more likely to get arrested for possession. Fraser is white, but across the country, drivers with darker skin are disproportionately getting busted for driving around with THC in their veins. The exact number is difficult to quantify because most places do not track DUI arrests by type of intoxicant, but in the 18 states that have legalized recreational pot for adults, this failure of science and regulation amounts to a continuation of the war on drugs.ĭoug Fraser ended up with a speeding ticket, 15 days of house arrest, three years of probation, and around $4,000 in fines and fees-a typical sentence. This means a whole lot of people are going to jail, paying fines, and possibly losing their jobs, their driver's licenses, and their children for driving stoned, even though they were driving sober. A third of stoned-driving arrests in Colorado rely only on the opinion of a police officer-just a cop on the side of the road, considering who to arrest and who to let go. (The total number of road fatalities declined.)Īuthorities sometimes acknowledge that marijuana toxicology reports are junk, but that often means defaulting to another flawed method of assessment: human judgment. Washingtonians who tested positive might have gotten stoned days before they put their key in the ignition. But while those findings probably do reflect the fact that more people consume cannabis when it's legal, they didn't show that THC impairment caused the crashes, merely that the substance was present. The study made national headlines and was cited by politicians who raised fears about stoned driving as a reason to keep weed illegal. In 2020 a study found that in the years after Washington state legalized marijuana, the percentage of people involved in fatal crashes who tested positive for THC doubled. Measuring marijuana's overall impact on road safety, though, is statistically fraught. Driving high is not as dangerous as driving drunk, but marijuana can interfere with essential skills, including reaction time, processing speed, and visuospatial perception.
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