Cannabis legalisation not linked to rise in car accidents, says study

A team of researchers have studied emergency room records and determined that cannabis legalisation in Canada has not resulted in an increase in admissions.

The data published in the journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence revealed that there has been no increase in two provinces, Alberta and Ontario.

Canada legalised cannabis in 2018, which led to concerns that it would increase the number of traffic injuries, especially among young drivers.

The researchers, from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the University of British Columbia, assessed emergency department records to find any patterns in traffic-injury visits in the months leading to the legalisation and immediately afterwards.

They separated the drivers into two groups focusing on adult drivers and teenagers aged 14 to 18-years-old.

Cannabis legalisation and drivers

They reported: “The current study found no evidence that the implementation of the Cannabis Act was associated with significant changes in post-legalisation patterns of all drivers’ traffic-injury ED visits or, more specifically, youth-driver traffic-injury ED presentations.”

“Given that Canada’s Cannabis Act mandated that the Canadian Parliament review the public health consequences of the Act no later than 2023, the findings of the current study can provide empirical data not only for the Canadian evaluation of the calculus of harms and benefits but also for other international jurisdictions weighing the merits and drawbacks of cannabis legalisation policies.”

The Canadian data is consistent with studies from the United States that show no changes in traffic safety in the months following legalisation.

The study does not take into account the longer-term implications of legalisation despite other studies producing mixed results.

A study from earlier this year reported that drivers who use cannabis may not feel as impaired as someone else who used the same amount but a different strain.

Read more: Cannabis shortage may have caused a rise in synthetic cannabinoids being consumed