Slidedeck link<\/p>\n
Cannabis consumption is associated with changes in driver behaviour and performance (e.g., speed, lateral control) and overall collision risk. There is, however, debate concerning whether drivers who use cannabis for recreational versus medical purposes pose the same road safety risks. Many believe that medical users can drive safely after cannabis exposure, yet there has been minimal research of the issue. Many surveys have compared medical and recreational cannabis users in community or population-level samples. The majority of medical users also use cannabis for recreational purposes, yet these surveys have revealed that, relative to those who use recreationally only, medical cannabis users are older, have lower income, have poorer health and mental health, report more frequent use of and problems with cannabis but less use of and problems with alcohol.<\/p>\n
The purpose of this study was to examine the association between cannabis use for recreational purposes and for medical and recreational purposes combined (hereby referred to as medical users) and collision risk, controlling for factors known to differ between recreational and medical cannabis users.<\/p>\n
Data were derived from the 2014 through 2019 cycles of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Monitor, an ongoing cross-sectional telephone survey of adults (18+ years) in Ontario, Canada. A sample of 8,081 respondents who reported having driven in the past 12 months, and were asked about their involvement in motor vehicle collisions during that time period, were included in the analysis. A binary logistic regression was conducted of self-reported past-year collision involvement, assessing demographic characteristics, hazardous drinking, perceived general and mental health, and type of cannabis user (coded 1=no past-year cannabis use, 2=past-year recreational cannabis use only, 3=both past-year medical and recreational cannabis use, to be referred to as medical users).<\/p>\n
Approximately 11.8% and 6.2% of respondents reported being a recreational and medical cannabis user, respectively. Adjusting for potential covariates, relative to non-users, recreational users were at increased odds of collision involvement (AdjOR=1.75, 95%CI=1.19-2.57, p<.001). There was no association between medical cannabis use and collision risk.<\/p>\n
In the current study, relative to non-users, medical cannabis users showed no increase in collision risk; however, recreational cannabis users faced increased odds of a crash, even after adjusting for factors known to differentiate recreational from medical cannabis users, including sociodemographic variables, hazardous drinking, poor general and mental health. It is possible that the lack of a significant effect for medical use may be the result of low statistical power; only 6.2% of respondents were medical users. However, these results may also suggest that recreational users possess other related traits beyond those included in the current analysis, such as sensation-seeking, that may lead recreational users to engage in more risk-taking behind the wheel, independent of cannabis use.<\/p>\n
These findings provide insight into the relative road safety risks posed by recreational and medical cannabis use, which can inform drugged driving policy and legislation. Further research, with an expanded battery of relevant measures such as sensation seeking and risky or aggressive driving, is needed.<\/p>\n
Wickens, Stoduto, Ilie, Di Ciano, McDonald, Mistry, Alawi, Sharma, Hamilton, Nigatu, Mann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[344,346],"tags":[380,365,368],"class_list":["post-17407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-carsp-acpser-pri-virtual-conference-virtuelle-2021","category-research-and-evaluation","tag-collision-avoidance-protection","tag-drug-impaired-driving","tag-risky-driving"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17407"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20330,"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17407\/revisions\/20330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carsp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}