Saturday, October 4, 2014

How Marijuana affects Driving

My memories of what kids were like in College in especially 1969 and after makes me want to write this blog article. Especially now that many types of marijuana are about 300 times more hallucinogenic than what people smoked in college back then. If you are hallucinating how can't you safely drive a car or truck?

The following is a quote from page 54 October 13th 2014 issue of Time magazine (the yellow Ebola Issue)
begin quote:
How Dope affects driving:
Time talked to Dr. Marilyn Huestis, a lead marijuana researcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, to assess key side affects of driving while high.

Reduced awareness
Brain imaging shows that it's harder for people ho are high to focus on several things at once, such as a changing stoplight, an approaching bicycle and a car signaling a turn.

Hallucinations
Research is sparce but
Huestis says pot-related
cases can happen and
are an underappreciated
threat on the road

Slower decisions
Being high can impair
users' executive function
and problem solving ability.
That makes it harder for drivers
to make a smart choice-- do
I swerve or slam on the brakes
on the fly

Limited vision
It's harder to see events
in your periphery, says
Huestis, referring
to the tunnel vision effect of pot,
which impairs drivers' ability
to recognize obstacles to
their far left and right.

Sluggish releflexes
pot can negatively affect
the parts of the brain
that coordinate and initiats
movement, which makes it tougher
to physically control a car

end quote from page 54.

No comments: