No reason to expect more accidents after pot is legalized, public health study finds

published on June 7, 2018 by Patrick Cain in Global News

U.S. states that legalized recreational marijuana didn’t see any meaningful change in accident rates, a Canadian public health study has found.

The study, written for the Senate by a group of doctors and researchers, was released to the public on Tuesday by the University of British Columbia.

Road accident deaths in Washington and Colorado didn’t change significantly after legalization there, compared to eight other states that didn’t legalize.

“The reassuring thing is that we did not see, in the evidence that we reviewed, any significant increases in driving fatalities or accidents associated with legalization, and I think that’s something that we can probably expect when legalization rolls out sometime later this year,” said UBC’s Michael-John Milloy, one of the study’s authors.

In both states, the number of drivers killed in accidents who tested positive for THC rose significantly after legalization. Since THC can be detected up to a month after using pot, however, it can’t be clearly linked to a later accident.

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