CLARION CO., Pa. (EYT) — While Labor Day tends to be a holiday filled with picnics and activities with friends and family, far too often, the celebration turns tragic on local roadways.
According to the Pennsylvania State Police, over last year’s Labor Day holiday weekend, from August 31 through September 3, 2018, troopers investigated 722 crashes. In those crashes, six people were killed and 224 others were injured.
Troopers also arrested 660 operators for driving under the influence. Of the 722 crashes investigated by PSP, 80 of those were DUI-related.
According to Chief William Peck, of the Clarion Borough Police Department, one of the current problems, when it comes to driving under the influence, is that many people don’t seem to understand that marijuana causes impairment.
“Any kind of substance that impairs you is against the law,” Chief Peck told exploreClarion.com.
“If we encounter that, we’re going to handle it just like someone who is under the influence of alcohol.”
According to a release from PennDOT, Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — the chemical responsible for most of marijuana’s psychological effects — has been shown to slow reaction times, impair cognitive performance, and make it more difficult for drivers to keep a steady position in their lane.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) agrees, stating THC affects areas of the brain that control your body’s movements, balance, coordination, memory, and judgment.
Research cited by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Drug Abuse indicate much the same thing, stating marijuana significantly impairs judgment, motor coordination, lane tracking ability, and reaction time, and can also hurt a driver’s ability to multitask, which is a critical skill for driving.
“People don’t seem to think it’s as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol, but it is,” Chief Peck added.
Chief Malnofsky, of the New Bethlehem Borough Police, said that “marijuana affects your ability to react, the same as alcohol does.”
With the changes in laws, both in Pennsylvania with the advent of medical marijuana, and across the nation, with decriminalization and legalization in multiple states, marijuana use is on the rise, and likewise, marijuana DUIs are rising, as well.
According to the CDC, as of 2017, 13% of nighttime, weekend drivers have marijuana in their system, up from 9% in 2007, and after alcohol, marijuana is the drug most often linked to drugged driving.
Trooper Chewning, Public Information Officer for PSP Troop C, noted that in our area, half or more of the DUIs issued by the PSP troopers involve drugs, including marijuana.
“It’s a pretty high amount,” Chewning noted.
Chief Peck added that the borough “sees it frequently.”
In New Bethlehem, Chief Malnofsky explained that his officers are “seeing an uptick in driving under the influence of marijuana.”
For the calendar year 2018, the Clarion-based State Police had 116 DUI arrests and 41 DUI-involved crashes, and the Marienville-based State Police had 43 DUI arrests and 10 DUI-related crashes. Statistics on how many of those arrests and crashes involved drugs versus alcohol are not currently available.
In January of 2018, NHTSA launched a new initiative to address drug-impaired driving. NHTSA’s National Drug-Impaired Driving Initiative brings together experts, including law enforcement officials, prosecutors, substance abuse experts, and others, to discuss strategies that can reduce drug-impaired driving.
The discussion may also touch on some of the issues with marijuana and driving that are a bit more complex than issues with many other substances.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, while marijuana is currently the drug most frequently found in the blood of drivers who have been involved in vehicle crashes, including fatal ones, the role played by marijuana in crashes is often unclear because it can be detected in body fluids for days or even weeks after intoxication and because people frequently combine it with alcohol.
While a meta-analysis of many studies discovered that the risk of being involved in a crash significantly increased after marijuana use, a large case-control study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found no significant increased crash risk attributable to cannabis after controlling for drivers’ age, gender, race, and presence of alcohol.
Also, while multiple studies have shown that marijuana negatively affects a number of skills needed for safe driving, and some have shown a link between marijuana use and car crashes, it remains unclear whether marijuana use directly increases the risk of car crashes. This is due, in part, to the lack of an accurate roadside test for marijuana levels in the body and the fact that marijuana can remain in a user’s system for days or weeks after the last use. Also, drivers in DUI-related crashes frequently have multiple drugs in their system, making it difficult to determine which substance contributed more to the crash.
Despite the issues surrounding marijuana, driving impaired by any substance (legal or illegal) is against the law, and law enforcement officers are trained to observe the behavior and identify impaired drivers for the safety of everyone on the roadway.
