{"id":98217,"date":"2018-08-29T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/marijuana-impairment-cited-in-fewer-fatal-crashes-in-2017\/"},"modified":"2018-08-29T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T13:00:00","slug":"marijuana-impairment-cited-in-fewer-fatal-crashes-in-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/marijuana-impairment-cited-in-fewer-fatal-crashes-in-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Marijuana impairment cited in fewer fatal crashes in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The number of highway deaths involving Colorado drivers who had marijuana in their system grew again in 2017, a new state study shows.<\/span>Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The number of highway deaths involving Colorado drivers who had marijuana in their system grew again in 2017, a new state study shows.<\/hardreturn><\/p>\n

At the same time, traffic fatalities in which drivers had enough marijuana in their bloodstream to be deemed legally impaired dropped sharply, from 52 in 2016 to 35 last year.<\/p>\n

The reason for this seeming contradiction: Marijuana can remain in the bloodstream for weeks, so a positive blood test may not mean a driver was stoned at the time of a deadly crash.<\/p>\n

As the Colorado Department of Transportation study notes, \u201cThe presence of a cannabinoid does not necessarily indicate recent use of marijuana or impairment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, the number of fatalities involving positive tests for marijuana has nearly doubled since recreational legalization in 2014, from 75 that year to 125 in 2016 and 139 last year.<\/p>\n

Colorado law specifies that drivers with 5 nanograms of active tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in a milliliter of their blood can be prosecuted for driving under the influence of marijuana.<\/p>\n

A striking finding in the new study was the death toll involving people driving around with a cocktail of drugs in their bodies. In one year, deaths where drivers tested positive for cannabis, any alcohol and other drugs tripled \u2013 from eight in 2016 to 25 last year.<\/p>\n

The report also found that drunken driving deaths had increased again. Twenty-six percent of those killed in crashes, or 171 people, had blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or greater, Colorado\u2019s drunken driving limit, compared to 161 in 2016 and 151 in 2015.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, traffic deaths generally continued to increase on state roads, going from 546 in 2015 to 608 in 2016 and spiking to 648 last year.<\/p>\n

CDOT spokesman Sam Cole said the department considers the number of deaths in which the driver was marijuana-impaired under state law to be the most reliable indicator of its impact.<\/p>\n

By that measure, marijuana-related deaths are clearly down.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresence does not indicate impairment,\u201d he said. At the same time, \u201ctwo years does not make a trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kristi Kelly, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, welcomed the state finding that marijuana-impaired highway deaths declined last year.<\/p>\n

She added that the industry intends to keep campaigning against smoking and driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t think our job is done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Henny Lasley heads Smart Colorado, a group concerned about the effects of legalization on children.<\/p>\n

She worries that the latest highway death statistics will be used to loosen state regulations and promote public consumption of marijuana products.<\/p>\n

First, \u201cThe science of impairment is lacking,\u201d she said. \u201cMore concerning is why people are combining\u201d marijuana, alcohol and other drugs, she said. \u201cThe combination is very concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole agrees.<\/p>\n

Before fatal drug-related crashes, \u201cdrivers do tend to combine,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you combine, it will amplify your impairment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

drivers are shown to have pot in their system<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-98217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98217"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=98217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}