Truckload Authority - April/May 2019

MAY/JUNE | TCA 2019
Tracking The Trends
By Dorothy Cox
On May 7, 2016, in Boulder, Colorado, 18-year-old
Quinn Hefferan admitted to smoking marijuana before
falling asleep behind the wheel, crashing into another vehicle
and killing two people. It’s becoming a critical safety
issue: Professional truck drivers now more than ever are
having to share the road with drug-impaired passengervehicle
motorists.
The Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) estimates that
the frequency of collision claims per insured vehicle year
rose a combined 6 percent following the start of retail
sales of recreational marijuana in Colorado, Nevada, Oregon
and Washington, compared with the control states
of Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. The combinedstate
analysis is based on collision loss data from January
2012 through October 2017.
A separate study by the Insurance Institute for Highway
Safety (IIHS) examined 2012-2016 police-reported
crashes before and after retail sales began in Colorado,
Oregon and Washington. IIHS estimates that the three
states combined saw a 5.2 percent increase in the rate of
crashes per million vehicle registrations, compared with
neighboring states that didn’t legalize marijuana sales.
“The new IIHS-HLDI research on marijuana and
crashes indicates that legalizing marijuana for all uses
is having a negative impact on the safety of our roads,”
IIHS-HLDI President David Harkey said. “States exploring
legalizing marijuana should consider this effect on
highway safety.”
There is also evidence that suggests it’s not just a matter
of more people driving high.
A Denver Post investigative report found that greater
and more concentrated levels of tetrahydrocannabinol,
or THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, are
being found in four-wheel drivers’ systems in the Rocky
Mountain State.
“This is not your grandfather’s weed,” a police chief told
the newspaper. “It’s not even marijuana; it’s THC, oils and
concentrates” and in some situations reaching “levels of
acute overdose.”
And, more four-wheel motorists are combining marijuana
use with alcohol and other drugs before getting
behind the wheel.
A study conducted under the auspices of the National
Cooperative Research and Evaluation Program found
that since Colorado legalized recreational cannibis use
in 2012, young people there are more likely to combine
alcohol and pot use before driving. Darrin Grondel, director
of the Washington [state] Traffic Safety Commission,
a state which also legalized recreational marijuana use
in 2012, said “poly drug use” by motorists who combine
cannabis, alcohol and prescription drugs such as fentanyl,
is becoming more prevalent.
A study by Elizabeth Hartney, PhD, on teen use of cannibis,
says the amount of THC in marijuana has grown
exponentially over the years. By the early 2000s, the concentration
had increased to about 4 percent — between
two and four times as strong as it had been during the
“hippie” movement. And in 2012, the strength of modern
“high potency” strains of marijuana, such as sinsemilla,
are reportedly at least four times as strong, containing 16
to 22 percent THC.
According to the Post study, THC levels in drivers killed
in crashes in 2016 “routinely” reached levels of more than
30 nanograms per milliliter whereas the year before, levels
were only 5 nanograms per milliliter or lower.
It may well be more than that, however, because the
investigation found coroners can’t agree on whether the
presence of THC should be listed on death certificates.
If a driver’s body shows an amount of alcohol that was
over the limit, it’s rare for a coroner to go back and test for
marijuana or other drugs.
At last count, 31 states have legalized cannabis for
medical use and 11 have legalized the recreational use
of marijuana (10 states and Washington, D.C.).
And now that Canada has legalized the recreational
12 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2019