|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
Cannabis a driving danger for five hours, new research shows
The Canberra Times
Tuesday 03 Jul 2001 BRISBANE: Cannabis users should not drive for five hours after smoking the drug, a researcher said yesterday. Douglas Tutt, director of health promotion for the NSW Central Coast, urged cannabis users not to smoke and drive, after a study of fatal accidents. The research revealed drivers aged under 45 years killed in car crashes were just as likely to be affected by cannabis as alcohol. Mr Tutt said the study of four years of coronial records in Gosford and Wyong showed that THC, the active ingredient of cannabis, was an emerging issue for curbing the road toll. "Cannabis kills, just like alcohol," he told a conference on drug and alcohol addiction in Brisbane. Mr Tutt said it was hard to come up with a "safe" level of cannabis consumption before driving. "What we've been able to estimate is that impairment lasts for about four hours, and so we think that you need to wait five hours before driving," he told AAP. Mr Tutt said there was little advice about driving offered to cannabis users, aside from the Nimbin Hemp Bar web page, which recommended a three-hour wait. "We don't think that's long enough," he said. Mr Tutt said until coronial information about cannabis intoxication was entered into police databases just like alcohol statistics, no clear guidelines could be developed. "We've got to collect the data in a systematic way," he said. Cannabis intoxication occurred once the level of THC in the body reached 300 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. Research showed that five hours after smoking cannabis, nearly all users had cleared the THC from the bloodstream. Past studies which measured only the lingering metabolites of THC had led to claims cannabis was "safer" for driving than alcohol. However, new research to be published soon indicated that although cannabis-affected motorists drove more slowly, they were more easily distracted, tended to "weave", and spent 400 per cent more time out of their lanes than non-intoxicated drivers. Of 24 motorists under 45 who were killed on the Central Coast from 1996 to 1999, six were positive for alcohol alone, six for cannabis alone and four were positive for both. Mr Tutt said all injured drivers admitted to hospital were compulsorily tested for alcohol and it was time that similar tests for THC were enforced. "We've got something like 20 per cent of our late teenage males being regular cannabis users and these are exactly the same people who're just getting cars," he said.
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!