More Drivers Killed Under the Influence of Drugs Than Alcohol
US News 31 May 2018
Family First Comment: Another reason not to go soft on drugs. Protecting lives!
“If use is up, use by drivers is up,” author of the study Jim Hedlund says. Hedlund attributes the decline in alcohol-related deaths to the “broad societal consensus” that drunk driving is wrong. There’s a “strong societal consensus. It’s [drunk driving] is bad. Everyone knows it’s bad.”
www.saynopetodope.nz
A new report found fatally injured drivers are increasingly under the influence of one or more drugs.
Some 22.3 percent of fatally injured motorists who were tested for drugs tested positive for marijuana in 2016, a figure that researchers say has “increased substantially” in recent years as states have legalized the drug for recreational or medicinal use, according to a new report.
The finding, in a study released Thursday by the Governors Highway Safety Association, was one of several regarding the growing prevalence of drugs in vehicle fatalities. The report also found that 44 percent of drivers killed in automobile accidents in 2016 who were tested for drugs tested positive for one or more substances – a number that was up 28 percent from 10 years prior. That figure eclipsed the 37.9 percent who were known to have been tested for alcohol and tested positive – a figure that actually fell in the last decade, from 41 percent in 2006.
The report was intended to draw attention to the need to incorporate a drug message into programs that encourage motorists not to drive while impaired. It noted that marijuana was the most commonly found drug. Jim Hedlund, author of the study, says “marijuana use has become more normalized” as states across the country decriminalize the drug.
“If use is up, use by drivers is up,” Hedlund says.
Hedlund attributes the decline in alcohol-related deaths to the “broad societal consensus” that drunk driving is wrong. There’s a “strong societal consensus. It’s [drunk driving] is bad,” he says. “Everyone knows it’s bad.” However, this way of thinking hasn’t caught up to drug-impaired driving yet. That’s where education comes in.
“That’s the next step. Precisely to provide that education,” Hedlund says.
READ MORE: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-care-news/articles/2018-05-31/more-drivers-killed-under-the-influence-of-drugs-than-alcohol
