Marijuana use and driving

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (U.S.)
• Description:
  Driving under the influence (DUI) laws are not just for alcohol. Driving under the influence of drugs, including marijuana, is also dangerous and illegal. Driving is a complex task that requires your full attention to stay safe and alert. Marijuana affects areas of the brain that control your body’s movements, balance, coordination, memory, and judgment. Marijuana use can impair important skills required for safe driving by:
  
  • slowing your reaction time and ability to make decisions,
  
  • impairing coordination, and
  
  • distorting perception. Studies have shown an association between acute marijuana use and car crashes, but more research is needed. It is difficult to connect the presence of marijuana or concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the compound responsible for marijuana’s psychoactive properties (the “high”), to impairment in driving performance for an individual person. Studies have shown that the use of multiple substances (such as marijuana and alcohol) at the same time can increase impairment.
  
  marijuanafactsheets-driving-508compliant.pdf
  
  
• Subjects:
  Automobile Driving Marijuana Smoking
• Series:
  Cannabis and Public Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Fact Sheet
• Pages in Document:
  2 unnumbered pages
• Collection(s):
  Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:f62d974522c4bbab8ac7b4b8b012057d98c29552c582ab9beb46605050cf408bbcf8964ae94a576377f995b1bc19277406db6c66e1b251bfcfde90340c6f3b1a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/126551/cdc_126551_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 389.09 KB ]