For the third session in a row, members of Delaware’s General Assembly have introduced a bill to fully legalize and commercialize the adult use of cannabis in the state. The first bill failed to make it out of the House of Representatives; the second bill was not released from the House Appropriations Committee.
On Wednesday, House Bill 150 was released by the House Health & Human Development Committee and now heads toward the House Appropriations Committee for review.
Meanwhile, efforts to legalize in Maryland fell short last week.
AAA has been promoting traffic safety in Delaware, Maryland and across the country for more than a century, addressing everything from seat belt laws to drunken and distracted driving.
AAA strongly opposes the legalization of recreational cannabis because of the inherent traffic safety risks and because of the difficulties in determining impairment at the roadside by law enforcement:
We know that drugged driving is on the rise and far more dangerous than the public may realize. According to new research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), crashes are up by as much as 6% in Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, compared with neighboring states that haven’t legalized cannabis for recreational use. This is particularly concerning since research has shown that cannabis impairs psychomotor skills and cognitive functions, including reaction time, distance perception, lane tracking, motor coordination and attention span.
AAA believes that people who drive while impaired by cannabis should face the same penalties established for drunken drivers. Unfortunately, unlike for alcohol, knowing how much active THC is in the body fluids of a driver doesn’t reliably predict that driver’s level of impairment. This means even perfectly accurate technology to measure the amount of active THC in blood or saliva proves nothing more than recent use of cannabis. It’s not the lack of a test that complicates this situation; it’s that researchers have not successfully established how the result of such a test relates to driver impairment. Conversely, this is well-established for alcohol.
As an advocate for the safety of motorists and all roadway users, AAA is troubled by the safety implications of individuals using cannabis and getting behind the wheel. It’s dangerous to legalize cannabis before we are prepared to manage the potential roadway-safety consequences and provide law enforcement officers with all the training and resources they need to address this issue.
Ken Grant is the public and government affairs manager for AAA Mid-Atlantic in Delaware.
