Medicinal cannabis inquiry reveals the dodgy police story on drug driving

MLC Cate Faerhmann

Many interesting snippets in this paywalled article from the Newcastle Herald, describing a parliamentary enquiry driven by a bill from Greens MLC Cate Faerhmann. It reveals the dark underside of alarmist police statements justifying their massive prohibition budget.

EG it appears there is zero research or evidence linking cannabis use to NSW accidents. The Police merely noted its presence in 60 out of 264 fatal accidents. By my maths, that's about 22% which is not far off the number of people who use it. So is that significant? If, say, left-handed people were 22% of the population and were involved in 22% of accidents, could you say that being a southpaw contributed to tragic road deaths?

 

On top of that, mere 'presence' is recorded regardless of whatever else the driver had been taking, eg alcohol, which is a clear major risk factor. It's clear that treating drivers with cannabis in their system more harshly than those with alcohol is grossly unfair. Driving at the legal alcohol limit is more than twice as risky, but no penalties apply.

Dr Michael White, a drugs and driving researcher with the School of Psychology at University of Adelaide, said the risk of a crash while impaired with cannabis was "a lot less" than alcohol.

He said the commonly-held position was that cannabis increased the risk of crashing by 40 per cent, adding that this risk was "very low".

"It's a matter of getting that 40 per cent into perspective. It's a lot less than alcohol at 0.05 BAC [blood alcohol concentration], which doubles your risk of crashing - it's 100 per cent. It's a lot less than travelling 5km over the speed limit in a 60kmh zone, which doubles your crash risk. The use of a motorbike increases the risk of crashing 30-fold. That's 3000 per cent.

"If you look at all the road safety problems, including other drugs like benzodiazepines and opioids, cannabis is way down at the bottom of the list as far as crash risk goes. It's a very small risk compared with almost any other cause of concern to road safety."

These percentages sound alarming but 40% does not mean there is a 40% chance of dying on the road. It means if you take that figure of 264 deaths and divide it by the total number of drivers on NSW roads you get a tiny fraction, meaning that your chance of a fatal accident is tiny in the first place. The 40% is a fraction of that figure, and still a lot less than the risk from travelling 65kmh in a 60 zone. Now, hands up who has ever done that? Next question: are you still alive?

But even these figures exaggerate the danger from cannabis. Professor Iain McGregor, of the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics at the University of Sydney, said studies showed an increased crash risk of 10 to 40 per cent for those "acutely intoxicated with cannabis". Other studies show cannabis increases the risk about 1.8x while high-range alcohol comes in at a stunning 35x.

Then there is the matter of outright discrimination around cannabis compared to other drugs known to increase risk.

Users of other prescription drugs such as opioids, benzodiazepines and sedating antidepressant drugs, however, can drive without facing such penalties.

Ms Faerhmann's bill would make medicinal cannabis also exempt from penalties. Such a medical defence is supported by the Law Society of NSW.