Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Nadelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the
Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any
Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media,
Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heat as
Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not
Speaker 1: even represent my own and nothing contained in this show
Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use
Speaker 1: any type of drug. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Today's topic is
Speaker 1: the subject of marijuana and driving. Now that's obviously something
Speaker 1: that lots of us, you know, wonder about, whether it's
Speaker 1: because we ourselves use marijuana, or use marijuana and drive ourselves,
Speaker 1: or we know people who do. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: debate about it politically, with people saying we can't legalize
Speaker 1: marijuana till we've resolved this issue, and other people saying
Speaker 1: it's not really a major issue. So what I decided
Speaker 1: was to have the person who may be the world's
Speaker 1: leading expert on this subject come on and join me
Speaker 1: on Psychoactive. His name is Paul Armentano. He is the
Speaker 1: deputy director of Normal for many years. He's been working
Speaker 1: at Normal since which is the same year that I
Speaker 1: founded the Lindusmis Center, which eventually became Drug Policy Alliance,
Speaker 1: So we're talking like twenty eight years. And he is
Speaker 1: widely regarded in the world of people who think and
Speaker 1: study marijuana as sort of the brain, the brain about marijuana,
Speaker 1: the one who is familiar with the thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of studies, who has synthesized it. Now. Normal is, of
Speaker 1: course the organization of the marijuana consumer, and so Paul
Speaker 1: obviously comes to this from a certain political perspective, one
Speaker 1: that favors the legalization of marijuana, but also very much
Speaker 1: to an advocate of responsible marijuana use. So Paul, thank
Speaker 1: you ever so much for joining me on Psychoactive. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you Ethan for having me and as someone who,
Speaker 1: when I was cutting my teeth on this issue, looked
Speaker 1: to someone like you as the brains of the marijuana movement,
Speaker 1: I am flattered by your compliments. Well, I mean, Paul,
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, for so many years it's
Speaker 1: like when a marijuana question pops up, you know who's
Speaker 1: the go to person. And the fact that you work
Speaker 1: at a fellow advocacy organization. On the one hands, a
Speaker 1: plus sometimes to be a negative because you think people
Speaker 1: are gonna be biased. But what if consistently seen with
Speaker 1: your writing and your research on this is that you
Speaker 1: really have an objective perspective, and I think that you're
Speaker 1: basically not just thinking about how this issue plays out
Speaker 1: in terms of the legalization debates, but also how do
Speaker 1: we make sure that people who use marijuana stay safe
Speaker 1: and don't hurt anybody else. Absolutely, you know, I've always
Speaker 1: approached this issue from the standpoint of we want to
Speaker 1: have evidence based policies, and in order to have evidence
Speaker 1: based policies, there's got to be somewhat out there who's
Speaker 1: reviewed and understood and synthesize the evidence. And this is
Speaker 1: something where we have data, we have facts, But for
Speaker 1: so often the narrative that exists in this country, whether
Speaker 1: it's around marijuana or a number of other public policies,
Speaker 1: it isn't really driven by the facts and the data.
Speaker 1: It's driven by rhetoric. It's driven by emotion. And being
Speaker 1: cognizant of that, I did not want my own work
Speaker 1: and the messaging that I would put out there to
Speaker 1: be anything but evidence based That's always been my goal,
Speaker 1: and I feel like by doing that we can have
Speaker 1: better conversations and ultimately we can have better sensible policies. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Paul, what I wanted to do is take our
Speaker 1: audience through this step by staff, and at points there's
Speaker 1: going to be elements of understanding we search methodology and
Speaker 1: why certain studies are flawed or why certain studies are
Speaker 1: gold standards. So I've asked Paul to try to explain
Speaker 1: that as carefully as possible. But let's start off with
Speaker 1: the first question, which is how does one test the
Speaker 1: impact of marijuana on driving? Is it in driver simulators,
Speaker 1: is it on people who are actually driving? What are
Speaker 1: the different techniques for testing the impact of marijuana on driving. Well,
Speaker 1: one thing to keep in mind, Eatan, is that researchers
Speaker 1: have been posing this question for decades. This isn't something
Speaker 1: that only post legalization investigators said, this is something we
Speaker 1: ought to study, this is something we ought to understand better.
Speaker 1: Researchers around the world have been looking into this issue
Speaker 1: going back several decades. In fact, some of the earliest
Speaker 1: studies that we have were conducted in the Netherlands, but
Speaker 1: they are actually sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety
Speaker 1: Administration the United Dates, and in those studies, which probably
Speaker 1: the methods that they use will not be replicated again
Speaker 1: anytime soon. But in those initial studies, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: subjects were permitted to smoke marijuana and then get behind
Speaker 1: the wheel and drive in actual real world traffic. They
Speaker 1: had a driving instructor in the passenger seat. The instructor
Speaker 1: had the ability that was essentially a kill switch on
Speaker 1: the car, and the instructor had the ability if he
Speaker 1: or she desired to just shut the car off in
Speaker 1: the middle of the experiment. But Nitz has did three
Speaker 1: studies of this nature, one where individuals smoked marijuana drove
Speaker 1: in real world conditions in it relatively rural areas, another
Speaker 1: study where they drove in urban areas, and a third
Speaker 1: study where they drove in rush hour congested traffic. And
Speaker 1: that was one of the ways researchers chose to study
Speaker 1: the impact of marijuana and driving. Interestingly, the drivers in
Speaker 1: that study did not have accidents. Certainly, I could imagine
Speaker 1: the liability if they did, but they did not. And
Speaker 1: those studies were done again. They were published by the
Speaker 1: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration the early ninety nineties, But
Speaker 1: since that time, NITZA sponsored additional studies, and many of
Speaker 1: those are actually driving simulator studies. So again, individuals they'd
Speaker 1: perform on a driving simulator test to get a baseline
Speaker 1: level of performance. Then they are administered cannabis and virtually
Speaker 1: all of these instances they're inhaling cannabis, and then twenty
Speaker 1: thirty minutes later they're asked to drive on a simulated
Speaker 1: course and their performance is compared to their earlier baseline performance.
Speaker 1: And there's a number of simulator studies that have been
Speaker 1: done that way over the decades as well. Now, those
Speaker 1: studies that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, I guess
Speaker 1: you abbreviated NITCH, the ones they paid to do in
Speaker 1: a those were back in the eighties early nineties. Those
Speaker 1: are done the early nineties ah HA, And that was
Speaker 1: one of the ones that found essentially no difference between
Speaker 1: marijuana users and drug free drivers. At the time, they
Speaker 1: found very little difference in drivers performance after inhaling cannabis
Speaker 1: versus their baseline performance. What they essentially identified was that
Speaker 1: drivers under the influence of cannabis or cognizant that they
Speaker 1: were under the influence and therefore they engaged in compensatory
Speaker 1: driving behaviors. In other words, they drove more slowly than
Speaker 1: they had at baseline, they made fewer lane changes, they
Speaker 1: left greater headway between their vehicle and the vehicle in
Speaker 1: front of them. Essentially, there were minor differences and performance,
Speaker 1: and those differences were fell into the category of compensatory driving.
Speaker 1: And I imagine there's some bias built into this in
Speaker 1: favor of marijuana's safety findings, because the people knew that
Speaker 1: they were engaged in the test and that they were
Speaker 1: being observed, so they were going to be ultra conscious
Speaker 1: of trying to drive carefully. That's very likely. In fact,
Speaker 1: when you look at some of the driving simulator studies,
Speaker 1: you see greater differences between baseline performance and performance after
Speaker 1: inhaling cannabis in the simulator studies. Then you saw those
Speaker 1: initial on road studies, and the variable could very well
Speaker 1: be that subjects in the latter studies knew they weren't
Speaker 1: driving on the road they do they were essentially engaging
Speaker 1: in in in a sort of a video game, and
Speaker 1: that the stakes were not as high as were those
Speaker 1: subjects that were actually driving on the road. A real
Speaker 1: world traffic Now, when we talk about the notion of
Speaker 1: driving under the influence of marijanners, but what does it
Speaker 1: actually mean to say driving under the influence? I mean,
Speaker 1: we know on the one hand that if you've just
Speaker 1: gotten high and you're feeling high, you are under the influence.
Speaker 1: And we know on the other hand that if you
Speaker 1: haven't smoked marijuana in days but it's still showing up
Speaker 1: in your urine because marijuanted tens to show up in
Speaker 1: urine for a long time, that you're not driving under
Speaker 1: the influence. But there must be something in between. Is
Speaker 1: it all just a gray area for when one says
Speaker 1: you're no longer under the influence, it's a gray area
Speaker 1: to some respects under the law in certain jurisdictions that
Speaker 1: have imposed traffic safety laws that aren't based on identifiable impairment.
Speaker 1: In those instances, theoretically you could have someone test positive
Speaker 1: for marijuana and be charged with driving under the influence,
Speaker 1: even absent of any evidence of impaired driving. But in
Speaker 1: the majority of jurisdictions of this country that is not
Speaker 1: the case. To be charged with driving under the influence
Speaker 1: of drugs or driving under the influence of cannabis. There
Speaker 1: has to be evidence of recent ingestion or exposure to
Speaker 1: a controlled substance, and then there must be evidence that
Speaker 1: someone is unable to drive a motor vehicle safely because
Speaker 1: they are under the influence of that substance that they
Speaker 1: recently ingested. And let me be clear that standard applies
Speaker 1: regardless of the legality or illegality of the substance that
Speaker 1: is consumed. But you know, I'm mostly think about situations like,
Speaker 1: for example, if I take in edible and when I'm
Speaker 1: coming down from the edible, it's seen my fatigue can
Speaker 1: really come on fast. And I'm wondering like the point
Speaker 1: at which we say somebody is no longer under the
Speaker 1: influence of marijuana. And I'm just talking about not from
Speaker 1: a legal perspective, but in terms of people who use
Speaker 1: marijuana and drive. Are there times when you're still under
Speaker 1: the influence of marijuana, you thinking it can impact you're driving,
Speaker 1: but not really aware of it. Sure, and Ethan, Again,
Speaker 1: like so many of these questions, I imagine you'll oppose
Speaker 1: to be these aren't novel questions. Again, Scientists have have
Speaker 1: asked this question multiple times, and we have numerous studies
Speaker 1: that have been designed to try and answer it. And
Speaker 1: if one is to look at the totality of data
Speaker 1: out there and try to find a consensus, it appears
Speaker 1: that again, these are studies that are almost exclusively done
Speaker 1: with subjects who are inhaling cannabis. So the timeline for
Speaker 1: individuals using other formulations of cannabis like edibles or tinctures
Speaker 1: or dabs are going to be entirely different. And I
Speaker 1: would dare say right upfront has not been studied very much,
Speaker 1: if at all. But with regard to inhaled cannabis, study
Speaker 1: after study tells us that about twenty minutes, the forty
Speaker 1: minutes perhaps sixty minutes after a person inhales cannabis is
Speaker 1: when they are most acutely impaired when it comes to
Speaker 1: psychomotor performance. And we know this based on a variety
Speaker 1: of studies where individuals are given a number of psychomotor,
Speaker 1: behavioral or cognitive tasks at baseline, they then in hail marijuana,
Speaker 1: and then they continue to do those tasks again thirty
Speaker 1: minutes later, sixty minutes later, two hours later, four hours later,
Speaker 1: and what we see is the greatest differentiation from their
Speaker 1: baseline performance tends to take place in that twenty to
Speaker 1: sixty minute window, and then within about four hours after
Speaker 1: that window they returned to their baseline performance altogether. There's
Speaker 1: an interesting recent study that came out looking at driving
Speaker 1: simulator tests, and to your question, individuals were asked when
Speaker 1: they felt when they perceived that they had returned to
Speaker 1: baseline performance, and interestingly, a number of subjects perceived the
Speaker 1: fact that they did about one hour earlier or before
Speaker 1: their actual objective performance returned to baseline performance. But again,
Speaker 1: we're talking about maybe a total window of about four
Speaker 1: to four and a half hours, but really about a
Speaker 1: forty minute window at that twenty to sixty minute point
Speaker 1: where we see the greatest or most significant changes in performance.
Speaker 1: So we have some folks thinking that the effects of
Speaker 1: cannabis have worn off slightly before they actually have worn off.
Speaker 1: And now are there also opposite studies? I think I've
Speaker 1: seen where people think they're still somewhat in paired, but
Speaker 1: in fact they're driving perfectly fine. Correct. What we see
Speaker 1: in a number of different simulator studies and some close
Speaker 1: course driving studies is that when individuals are asked to
Speaker 1: assess their own performance after the fact, scientists will say, well,
Speaker 1: how do you think you did. We have a number
Speaker 1: of studies where the subjects will say, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I did rather poorly, But then when their actual
Speaker 1: performance is measured or assessed objectively, they did much better.
Speaker 1: They drove much better overall than the subjects perceived that
Speaker 1: they did. So they actually perceived themselves to perform worse
Speaker 1: than they actually did perform, and we see that a
Speaker 1: number of studies. We have one particular study where individuals
Speaker 1: were given oral THHC and asked to drive on a
Speaker 1: closed course, and a number of subjects interestingly refused to
Speaker 1: do so. They said, I don't feel that I can
Speaker 1: operate this vehicle safely at this point in time, which
Speaker 1: I bring up because it's so different than the reaction
Speaker 1: we often associate with alcohol, where we've had public messaging
Speaker 1: for decades that say, hey, look, take the keys from
Speaker 1: somebody who might be wanting to drive under the influence
Speaker 1: of alcohol. Because so many individuals under the alcohol, they
Speaker 1: become overconfident in their ability to drive safely. We tend
Speaker 1: to see just the opposite reaction with individuals that are
Speaker 1: impaired by cannabis. So, Paul, I want to get into
Speaker 1: this difference between marijuana and alcohol and to impact on
Speaker 1: driving shortly, but let's just start by breaking down the
Speaker 1: different aspects of driving that when we're looking at the
Speaker 1: impact of marijuana, alcohol, a cycleactive drug or activity on driving,
Speaker 1: we're talking about things like how fast people break, whether
Speaker 1: they can keep a straight line, or whether they're weaving.
Speaker 1: What are the other variables that people are being tested
Speaker 1: for in terms of driving safety. So generally, when these
Speaker 1: driving safety tests are done, they're assessing a number of
Speaker 1: different objective metrics. They're looking at not just overall speed,
Speaker 1: but the ability to maintain a consistent speed. They're looking
Speaker 1: at how much headway drivers leave between their vehicle and
Speaker 1: a vehicle in front of them. They're looking at reaction time,
Speaker 1: break latency, how well drivers focus on not only what's
Speaker 1: going on in front of them and traffic, but what's
Speaker 1: also taking place in their peripheral vision. They're looking at
Speaker 1: what's something known as standard deviation and lateral positioning, which
Speaker 1: is really just a fancy way of saying, do these
Speaker 1: drivers weave? Do they stay in their lane, or do
Speaker 1: they weave across us the median? Those are largely the
Speaker 1: issues that are being assessed. Certainly, if we're talking about
Speaker 1: a driving simulator study, scientists will assess as they're a
Speaker 1: greater likelihood that they had a motor vehicle accident during
Speaker 1: the course of the simulated driving test than they did
Speaker 1: at baseline. Those are the sort of metrics that are
Speaker 1: looked at. I see. Okay, So let's get down to
Speaker 1: the basic alcohol versus marijuana differential, right, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think there's a broad awareness that alcohol is problematic for driving.
Speaker 1: And if you could just explain what makes alcohol so
Speaker 1: problematic and then why is marijuana less so well, they
Speaker 1: manifest in very different ways. In fact, in some respects,
Speaker 1: very opposite ways. As I mentioned earlier, one of the
Speaker 1: telltale signs of someone under the influence of alcohol is
Speaker 1: they tend to become overconfident in their driving abilities, and
Speaker 1: as a result, they tend to engage in more reckless
Speaker 1: driving behavior then they would win sober. They drive at
Speaker 1: a faster speed, they make more lane changes, they drive
Speaker 1: in a more aggressive manner, and when you ask them
Speaker 1: to assess their own performance, they tend to believe that
Speaker 1: they're performing better than they actually are. With cannabis, we
Speaker 1: tend to see a lot of shifts in the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: Individuals tend to become less confident in their ability to
Speaker 1: drive a vehicle safely. They become overly acutely aware of
Speaker 1: the fact that they are under the influence, and as
Speaker 1: a result, they try to minimize their risks during that
Speaker 1: period of time by engaging in compensatory driving behavior. They
Speaker 1: engage in fewer lane changes, they drive at a more
Speaker 1: slow speed, they leave greater distance between their vehicle and
Speaker 1: the vehicle in front of them. They engage in behaviors
Speaker 1: that would allow them to try to minimize their risks,
Speaker 1: whereas under the influence of alcohol, people tend, whether knowingly
Speaker 1: or unknowingly, to engage in behaviors that are more likely
Speaker 1: to maximize their risk of an accident. It is a
Speaker 1: consistent finding. Again, whether we're talking about driving on a
Speaker 1: closed course, driving in a driving simulating machine, or these
Speaker 1: early studies that we talked about from the Netherlands where
Speaker 1: individuals drove in actual real world traffic consistently across the board,
Speaker 1: subjects drive more slowly than they did at baseline in
Speaker 1: all of these different models, and again, just like driving
Speaker 1: more slowly as a consistent finding throughout the literature, this
Speaker 1: is also a consistent finding drivers under the influence of
Speaker 1: cannabis tend to weave. They weave more so under the
Speaker 1: influence of cannabis than they did at baseline. That is
Speaker 1: a finding we see again and again and again, and
Speaker 1: in terms of safety vs. Of you, the car in
Speaker 1: front of you, in terms of observation of traffic lights
Speaker 1: turning yellow, red things, they tend to leave more headway. Again,
Speaker 1: because that's compensatory behavior. There are in some instances there
Speaker 1: can be some change in reaction time may react slightly
Speaker 1: more slowly, although that is an inconsistent finding that is
Speaker 1: not afining you see throughout the literature. You also see
Speaker 1: in some studies but not others, a lack of driver's
Speaker 1: ability to respond quickly to things that might be in
Speaker 1: their peripheral vision as opposed to what's happening right in
Speaker 1: front of them. But what about tolerance. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: the question that if you're a regular marijuana user, as
Speaker 1: you get older, more experienced, you just develop a tolerance
Speaker 1: to the effects of marijuana. Or is it that I'm
Speaker 1: actually learning how to drive high or is that the
Speaker 1: same thing. No, I believe it's tolerance. The data on this,
Speaker 1: I think is pretty clear and consistent. Certainly anecdotally, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you and your audience has heard the individuals that
Speaker 1: are more habitual consumers of cannabis perceive becoming tolerant to
Speaker 1: some degree, certainly more so, or they have a more
Speaker 1: blunted effect that they might have had from cannabis when
Speaker 1: they were more naive to it. By tolerance, you mean
Speaker 1: basically experiencing less of the psychoactive effect. Yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: and the data backs dat up. In fact, there's some
Speaker 1: recent data providing a biological theory as to why that
Speaker 1: would be the case. But clearly, I think it is
Speaker 1: safe to say that the more frequently a person uses cannabis,
Speaker 1: the more tolerant they become to some not all, of
Speaker 1: the effects of cannabis. But with respect to psycho motor
Speaker 1: influencing effects, those are effects that people do tend to
Speaker 1: become more tolerant to over time when again they're frequent
Speaker 1: users of cannabis. Now, of course, cannabis has a dose
Speaker 1: related response, So even someone who might be tolerant to
Speaker 1: the effects of cannabis, if they were suddenly going to
Speaker 1: use a much more concentrated form of cannabis, are a
Speaker 1: much more higher potent form of cannabis. One would not
Speaker 1: expect them to suddenly be tolerant to that dosage or
Speaker 1: that potency simply because they become somewhat tolerant to lower
Speaker 1: potency cannabis over time. Now, Paul, you're saying that when
Speaker 1: it comes to things like edibles and the drinkables and
Speaker 1: all these other sorts of things, there's really very little
Speaker 1: evidence out there right now as to whether or not
Speaker 1: their impact on driving will turn out to be similar
Speaker 1: to this impact of smoking marijuana. That is correct. Again,
Speaker 1: most of the studies, in fact, almost all of them
Speaker 1: I can only think of a handful of exceptions, have
Speaker 1: looked at inhaled cannabis. I think researchers did this for
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. One, we're talking about, in some
Speaker 1: cases studies going back thirty forty years, inhaling cannabis through
Speaker 1: joints or through marijuana cigarettes was the primary way people
Speaker 1: use cannabis at that time, so the studies reflect that.
Speaker 1: I think there's also some expediency to this as well.
Speaker 1: We know that the effects of inhaled cannabis are fairly rapid,
Speaker 1: so when designing a study, I think it's easier for
Speaker 1: researchers to design to study where people inhale cannabis and
Speaker 1: then they begin testing them literally minutes later. As opposed
Speaker 1: to if we were going to design to study looking
Speaker 1: at oral absorption with th HC, we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: a much longer timeline and one that's much more variable
Speaker 1: from subject to subject to subject. You could have twenty
Speaker 1: subjects all taking the same oral dosage of th HC,
Speaker 1: but the duration of effect and the onset of effects
Speaker 1: could literally be different for all twenty of them. But
Speaker 1: why is that so different from marijuana. There's somebody who's
Speaker 1: taking edible every day. They're going to be familiar with effects,
Speaker 1: They're going to be experienced, they're gonna have tolerance, right
Speaker 1: as opposed to somebody who's a naive or doesn't know
Speaker 1: his dose. Is that radically different than it is with smokables.
Speaker 1: The difference between the two has to do with the
Speaker 1: fact there's much greater variation of effect from dose to
Speaker 1: dose with oral administration of th HC, and that's simply
Speaker 1: due to what we call the pharmacokinetics of th HC,
Speaker 1: which refers to how the body absorbs the active drug
Speaker 1: once it's been ingested. When a person in hails cannabis.
Speaker 1: Th HC goes from the lungs to the blood stream
Speaker 1: very quickly and then passes the blood brain barrier within minutes,
Speaker 1: and a person begins to feel the effects during that
Speaker 1: period of time. It's a very different process when a
Speaker 1: person consumes th HC orally like in an edible. In
Speaker 1: that case, they consume an edible, th HC goes to
Speaker 1: the stomach. From there it goes to the liver. The
Speaker 1: liver metabolizes THC, and this is a key point, and
Speaker 1: when it does so, it converts th HC to another
Speaker 1: equal potent or some people would argue even more potent
Speaker 1: metabolite or byproduct known as eleven hydroxy th hc from
Speaker 1: the liver. Then both eleven hydroxy th HC and th
Speaker 1: HC go to the blood stream. They then go past
Speaker 1: the blood brain barrier. That's why then ninety minutes, a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty minutes later a person begins to feel
Speaker 1: the effects. But like the effects they typically feel with
Speaker 1: smoking cannabis, where they're largely just feeling the effects of
Speaker 1: th HC, in this case they're feeling the effects of
Speaker 1: simultaneously of th HC and eleven hydroxy th hc, And
Speaker 1: because that eleven hydroxy th hc is at least as
Speaker 1: potent as th hc, they're feeling not only a more
Speaker 1: amplified effect, but a slightly different effect. They're feeling the
Speaker 1: effect of two psychoactive compounds at that point in time,
Speaker 1: and the degree to which the liver how much eleven
Speaker 1: hydroxy th hc it produces, that can change from day
Speaker 1: to day based on whether a person has a full
Speaker 1: stomach or an empty stomach, or the way their body
Speaker 1: at that moment metabolized th hc. It's a very different,
Speaker 1: less predictable experience I see. And comparing all this to alcohol.
Speaker 1: With alcohol, people develop a tolerance to the psychoactive effects
Speaker 1: as well. But is that less consequential in terms of
Speaker 1: the safety of their driving than it is with marijuana.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a very good question, Ethan. We hear
Speaker 1: this from time to time from the public policy standpoint,
Speaker 1: where do you bring up things like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: people become tolerant to all sorts of substances that can
Speaker 1: influence driving behavior. But when we look at say, traffic
Speaker 1: safety laws as they pertain for alcohol, there is no
Speaker 1: exception that says, well, Hey, this is the standard that
Speaker 1: we hold some people up to for driving under the influence,
Speaker 1: but we hold individuals who are alcoholics are habitual drinkers
Speaker 1: to a different standard because they have tolerance. I think
Speaker 1: it's an interesting philosophical discussion. I don't have the answer
Speaker 1: in that I'm simply not as familiar with some of
Speaker 1: the literature with regard to tolerance for alcohol and the
Speaker 1: degree to which somebody who is a habitual alcohol drinker
Speaker 1: develops a greater tolerance for the skills necessary to drive
Speaker 1: a vehicle safely. But certainly we are aware that alcohol
Speaker 1: does impact people differently depending on if they are more
Speaker 1: or less naive or more or less experienced with the drug.
Speaker 1: And we know this comes into play even with traffic
Speaker 1: safety laws, and that you can have a person who
Speaker 1: is very naive to alcohol clearly be under the influence
Speaker 1: by having one or two drinks and being below the
Speaker 1: point oh eight threshold. And conversely, you could theoretically have
Speaker 1: somebody who is a much more experienced alcohol drinker who
Speaker 1: would perform better than that naive person, even though they
Speaker 1: might have a hire blood alcohol content at that time.
Speaker 1: We'll be talking more after we hear this add when
Speaker 1: it comes to alcohol, right, it's now accepted across the
Speaker 1: United States, right, that point o a of blood alcohol
Speaker 1: content is the maximum, except in Utah, where I think
Speaker 1: it's point oh five. And in most states they basically
Speaker 1: have either zero or point oh two for people under
Speaker 1: the age of twenty one, and something either at the
Speaker 1: kid level or slightly above for commercial drivers, bus drivers,
Speaker 1: things like that. But in the case of cannabis, it
Speaker 1: sounds like that sort of per se level that it
Speaker 1: makes some sense in the alcohol field. But even so
Speaker 1: they sent it does make sense in the alcohol field,
Speaker 1: given the variability of how people experience alcohol, it makes
Speaker 1: dramatically less sense in the marijuana field. The cannabis field,
Speaker 1: whether you're talking about certainly urine, which can show up
Speaker 1: for weeks after but even blood tests. Is that right?
Speaker 1: And why? Yeah, you're absolutely correct, And there's a whole
Speaker 1: lot to unpack here with what you said first. With
Speaker 1: respect to alcohol, you're correct that there is this point
Speaker 1: of eight fairly universal standard that exists in almost every
Speaker 1: state except for Utah. But let's keep in mind it
Speaker 1: wasn't always point away. This standard has changed over time
Speaker 1: does some degree, based on what the science tells US,
Speaker 1: but by at large, it's also changed just with respect
Speaker 1: to what society will tolerate. The fact is it used
Speaker 1: to be higher in this country. Now it's point oh a.
Speaker 1: There's a push to make it point oh five. But
Speaker 1: if we look abroad, there's some countries like Sweden where
Speaker 1: the limits point oh two. Now they're not looking at
Speaker 1: different data in Sweden and basing their public policy off
Speaker 1: different data that we are here. We understand that the
Speaker 1: higher blood alcohol content one has, the more likely to
Speaker 1: engage in activities that are increase the risk of accident.
Speaker 1: So it's not just about that, it's about what as
Speaker 1: a society, what risk we're willing and unwilling to accept.
Speaker 1: And clearly in some European countries and some other parts
Speaker 1: of the world, I would dare say where alcohol is
Speaker 1: less sort of entrenched in the culture, they're less willing
Speaker 1: to accept driving accidents attributable to alcohol. And in the
Speaker 1: United States were war willing to accept it. But we're
Speaker 1: less willing to accept it now. We might have been
Speaker 1: several decades ago, and that's why the standard has gone down.
Speaker 1: But with respect to how alcohol is very different. The
Speaker 1: real key is that we know through decades worth of
Speaker 1: data that there is a correlation between the more one
Speaker 1: drinks and the higher their blood alcohol content, and that
Speaker 1: their maximal level of driving impairment coincides with their maximal
Speaker 1: blood alcohol levels. Okay, so as blood alcohol levels rise,
Speaker 1: a person's driving performance becomes worse, and that coincides with
Speaker 1: the more they drink, and then as their levels their
Speaker 1: blood alcohol content levels fall, they begin to return to
Speaker 1: baseline performance. So we have this linear model. That linear
Speaker 1: model doesn't exist for cannabis, and frankly, we don't have
Speaker 1: to just single out cannabis here. It doesn't the this
Speaker 1: for the majority of psychotropic substances that impair driving performance.
Speaker 1: That's why this per se model that has changed over
Speaker 1: the years and that doesn't even have a global consensus
Speaker 1: only exists for alcohol. If alcohol didn't follow this linear model,
Speaker 1: because the body largely absorbs alcohol the same way each time,
Speaker 1: and we can make as sets ements based on weight
Speaker 1: with regard to blood alcohol levels. If we didn't have
Speaker 1: that linear correlation, we wouldn't have per SE levels for alcohol.
Speaker 1: In fact, per SE levels for alcohol only date back
Speaker 1: about forty or fifty years. The reason we don't have
Speaker 1: these levels for cannabis or opioids or a number of
Speaker 1: other drugs that we don't impact driving performance is because
Speaker 1: there is no linear correlation. When a person inhales cannabis.
Speaker 1: Their THHC blood levels are highest within five to ten
Speaker 1: minutes after inhaling cannabis, but as we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: their dry having performance is going to be most impacted
Speaker 1: twenty the sixty minutes after they had inhaled cannabis. But
Speaker 1: during that period of time, their th HC blood levels
Speaker 1: aren't going up. They're actually going down, So they're falling
Speaker 1: at a time when a person is most likely to
Speaker 1: be under the influence. And then after they fall rapidly,
Speaker 1: they begin the plateau about three or four hours after inhalation,
Speaker 1: and they don't go down to zero, but they plateau
Speaker 1: around two or three nanograms per milli leader and they
Speaker 1: stay there for hours, so that those levels can still
Speaker 1: be detectable long after the effects of th HC have
Speaker 1: worn off. So we have this absolute lack of correlation
Speaker 1: where we can detect th HC and blood, but that
Speaker 1: test will not tell us when this person was most
Speaker 1: recently exposed to cannabis, and it doesn't tell us anything
Speaker 1: with respect to whether or not they're impaired. We all
Speaker 1: agree the influence cannabis can be somewhat problematic, and we'll
Speaker 1: get into shortly how it compares to other risks. But
Speaker 1: in terms of what the testing should be, I mean,
Speaker 1: we hear opponents of legalization saying we can't lealize marijuana
Speaker 1: until we figure out this driving due influence of marijuana issue, right,
Speaker 1: I mean you hear that being used as a political issue,
Speaker 1: but it's also being raised in a legitimate way by
Speaker 1: law enforcement to say, you know, we don't know exactly
Speaker 1: how to handle this or what to do. So when
Speaker 1: you look at the other things that are emerging, the
Speaker 1: sort of breathalyzer type things, or swabbing the mouth for saliva,
Speaker 1: or I think somebody came up with an app of
Speaker 1: some sort, what do you think are the cutting edge,
Speaker 1: the most practical and most pragmatic in terms of detecting
Speaker 1: impair driving involving cannabis. Well, number one, we need to
Speaker 1: get away from drug detection, because that's all a breathalyzer test,
Speaker 1: for instance, is. Now keep in mind, we have breathalyzers
Speaker 1: that detect the level of alcohol and breath that test
Speaker 1: in and of itself would be used if we didn't
Speaker 1: have other data correlating well at alcohol levels with impairment.
Speaker 1: So keep in mind, the only reason a breathalyzer detection
Speaker 1: test is valid and has utility for alcohol is because
Speaker 1: we have the other side of the coin. We have
Speaker 1: all of this data that tells us with some degree
Speaker 1: of certainty that if a person tests positive at this level,
Speaker 1: we can make these presumptions. We lack the ability to
Speaker 1: make those presumptions with cannabis, and again with all of
Speaker 1: these other substances out there that also impaired driving performance.
Speaker 1: So the question here isn't can we come up with
Speaker 1: a th HC detection test, for instance, even a roadside
Speaker 1: detection test. We already have those. We have oral saliva
Speaker 1: testing that could be administered at the side of the road.
Speaker 1: We have breath detection testing for th HC. That's not
Speaker 1: the problem. The problem is we don't learn any information
Speaker 1: sation that we need to know from those tests. Simply
Speaker 1: detecting somebody with THHC and their breath tells us very
Speaker 1: little because we can't correlate the detection regardless of the
Speaker 1: quantity detected with recent exposure and with impairment. Of performance.
Speaker 1: So we need to move away from this idea that
Speaker 1: we need to have different ways to detect certain compounds
Speaker 1: in one system to the question of how do we
Speaker 1: have the ability to provide law enforcement officers with the
Speaker 1: ability to use validated tests and measurements of impairment of performance.
Speaker 1: We know that there are different skills and behaviors that
Speaker 1: tend to be influenced by cannabis. We mentioned reaction time earlier.
Speaker 1: Another one is short term memory recall. Another objective metric
Speaker 1: is perception of time. That's confirmed in the literature. People
Speaker 1: under the influence of cannabis tend to underestimate the passage
Speaker 1: of time. So the idea here is that we could
Speaker 1: train officers like we do already. We have drug recognition
Speaker 1: evaluators police officers who go through trading and they have
Speaker 1: a twelve step protocol to determine if one is under
Speaker 1: the influence of a substance other than alcohol. Based on
Speaker 1: how these subjects perform on this twelve point protocol, we
Speaker 1: can incorporate into those sort of protocols these validated measurements
Speaker 1: for whether or not someone's under the influence of cannabis.
Speaker 1: The time perception test within the d R is known
Speaker 1: as the Romberg test. It's already there, but there's other
Speaker 1: parts of that twelve step protocol that are really highly questionable,
Speaker 1: looking at things like pupil dilation that really isn't relevant
Speaker 1: or not to whether one may or may not be
Speaker 1: under the influence of cannabis. But we could incorporate things
Speaker 1: like short term memory recall using app technology. We could
Speaker 1: incorporate reaction time by having individuals do handheld performance tests.
Speaker 1: I think that's really the future of where this needs
Speaker 1: to go, because then we're not just addressing the issue
Speaker 1: of allowing officers to identify who may or may not
Speaker 1: be driving under the infanso of cannabis, but it would
Speaker 1: allow officers to determine who may or may not simply
Speaker 1: be driving impaired, regardless of why they're driving impaired, whether
Speaker 1: it's from a lack of sleep, or whether it's from
Speaker 1: a prescription medication, or whether it's from a controlled substance.
Speaker 1: So there's some analogies here beteen testing of the impact
Speaker 1: of drugs on driving and testing about whether somebody's impaired
Speaker 1: in the workplace, where ultimately it's not did you or
Speaker 1: didn't you consume a drug. It's are you in fact
Speaker 1: able to do the job you're called upon to do,
Speaker 1: whether it's driving or your work job in a responsible
Speaker 1: and safe way. Absolutely, and we're seeing these sort of
Speaker 1: technologies being developed. There's a handheld technology known as Ruin
Speaker 1: that has been used in clinical studies. There's a very
Speaker 1: interesting study looking at Druid and comparing the results using
Speaker 1: Druid to the results of officers who are trained in
Speaker 1: standardized field testing. So individuals in the study either were
Speaker 1: or were not under the influence of cannabis, and officers,
Speaker 1: again trained officers ran them through the standard field sobriety
Speaker 1: test battery and they also tested them using the components
Speaker 1: of the Druid app, which again measures things like short
Speaker 1: term memory, recall, reaction time, perception of time, perception of
Speaker 1: the passage of time. And what the study found was
Speaker 1: that it was the use of the impairment application, the
Speaker 1: Druid app that was more sensitive and more accurate in
Speaker 1: identifying the subjects who were actually under the influence of
Speaker 1: cannabis than was the field sobriety tests things like the
Speaker 1: one legs stand the walk in turn tests that have
Speaker 1: been in existence for decades. Believe it or not ethan
Speaker 1: have only been validated to identify individuals under the influence
Speaker 1: of alcohol, and believe I know plenty of defense attorneys
Speaker 1: who would claim that even that part of the equation
Speaker 1: is questionable. But the reality is is when scientists have
Speaker 1: taken the field sobriety tests and applied it the subjects
Speaker 1: under the influence of other substances other than alcohol, there's
Speaker 1: no correlation between how subjects perform on those tests and
Speaker 1: whether or not they're actually impaired. Unfortunately, all these decades later,
Speaker 1: many police are still using the field sobriety tests to
Speaker 1: make determinations or guests of bits about whether people are
Speaker 1: impaired by substances other than alcohol, when again, the test
Speaker 1: was never designed for that purpose. So you're a fan
Speaker 1: of the druid app is perhaps being one of the
Speaker 1: best options out there for detecting real impairment. I do
Speaker 1: because again I'm aware of the different components of the
Speaker 1: tests and that those are scientifically validated measurements, in this
Speaker 1: case for cannabis. Now, you know, critics of something like
Speaker 1: this will say, you know the problem here, Paul, is
Speaker 1: how are we going to establish the baseline performance? Because
Speaker 1: every individual is going to have a different baseline, and
Speaker 1: perhaps an app like this is a valid technology for
Speaker 1: the user for somebody who is wondering whether or not
Speaker 1: they are safe to drive, but it would be more
Speaker 1: difficult to use in the workplace or to have used
Speaker 1: by law enforcement, because they won't know if the person
Speaker 1: is testing in a way that varies from their baseline performance,
Speaker 1: to which I'd say, the way we go about trying
Speaker 1: to solve that problem, and the way the makers of
Speaker 1: Druid are e fact going about this, is by having
Speaker 1: massive amounts of people use the app to gauge baseline performance,
Speaker 1: and then have them use the app after they've used
Speaker 1: particular substance, so we can have generalized baselines, so we
Speaker 1: can have some idea what the average person's performances on
Speaker 1: this app versus their average performance if in fact they're impaired,
Speaker 1: and we essentially have baseline data that we can compare
Speaker 1: somebody's performance too. I think there is a feasibility and
Speaker 1: being able to do that. It's not perfect, but it
Speaker 1: provides I think a very important and necessary tool that
Speaker 1: currently we're lacking both in the workplace and again with
Speaker 1: respect to this question of roadside testing. Well, one of
Speaker 1: the things I've liked about the way that you've written
Speaker 1: and spoken on this issue is the way which you
Speaker 1: compare the relative risks of driving into the influence of
Speaker 1: cannabis to other substances and also to other activities, and
Speaker 1: putting it in perspective right, And so we all know
Speaker 1: that alcohol, by enlarge, is more dangerous in cannabis for
Speaker 1: the vast majority of drivers. We also know that combining drugs,
Speaker 1: if you combine alcohol with marijuana, it escalates everything. If
Speaker 1: you combine opioids or benzos like valium or ambulent ever,
Speaker 1: it escalates the dangers. I think at one point I
Speaker 1: read that you were saying that even things like antihistamines
Speaker 1: r antibiotics have some psychoactive effect, they can impact driving.
Speaker 1: So could you put the risk element of cannabis if
Speaker 1: you compare driving of cannabis with driving drug free, and
Speaker 1: then with driving under the influence of other substances, how
Speaker 1: does it rate compare to all of these. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: really glad you asked that question, Ethan, because context is
Speaker 1: really key here, and there is a spectrum. There is
Speaker 1: a spectrum of risk, and there are behaviors people engage
Speaker 1: in every day that increase, at least theoretically, the risk
Speaker 1: of a motor vehicle accident. So the question really shouldn't
Speaker 1: be does cannabis potentially increase this risk? The question should
Speaker 1: be where on the spectrum of increased risks does cannabis fall.
Speaker 1: And we have again so much data assessing this issue,
Speaker 1: much of the data being you know, very consistent, yielding
Speaker 1: the same result again and again. So to answer this
Speaker 1: question we need to have an understanding of what is
Speaker 1: an odds ratio. And an odds ratio estimates the probability
Speaker 1: of an event like say, in this case, a motor
Speaker 1: vehicle accident, versus the probability that such an event will
Speaker 1: not occur. And so if there is a greater likelihood
Speaker 1: that engaging in a certain behavior is more likely to
Speaker 1: increase the likelihood of a certain outcome, that leads to
Speaker 1: an Odds ratio that is greater than one. If the
Speaker 1: behavior has no impact on increasing or decreasing the risk
Speaker 1: of an outcome, then you have an odds ratio of one.
Speaker 1: And of course, if the behavior you engage in decreased
Speaker 1: the risk of that outcome, you have to have an
Speaker 1: odds ratio below one. If you look at the dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens of studies that have been performed throughout the
Speaker 1: world to assess do people that have th HC in
Speaker 1: their system or do th HC positive drivers, do they
Speaker 1: have a greater or a lesser likelihood than a drug
Speaker 1: free driver in being and involved in a motor vehicle accident.
Speaker 1: You see that the odds ratio associate with the THHC
Speaker 1: positive driver tends to be between about one point two
Speaker 1: at one point four. That translates to about a twenty
Speaker 1: increased risk of accident compared to a drug free driver. Now,
Speaker 1: some individuals might say, well, Paul, that sounds really high,
Speaker 1: that sounds really problematic. The reality is, on this spectrum
Speaker 1: we talked about of behaviors that people engage in every day,
Speaker 1: and odds ratio of one point two or one point
Speaker 1: three is exceedingly low. Again, you mentioned alcohol earlier. Individuals
Speaker 1: who are alcohol positive drivers but positive for levels of
Speaker 1: alcohol below the legal limits tend to at a minimum
Speaker 1: have an ODDS ratio of four, which would make them
Speaker 1: four times are likely to be involved in a motor
Speaker 1: vehicle accident compared to an alcohol free driver. You mentioned
Speaker 1: anahistamines earlier. The odds ratio social with anahistamines is about
Speaker 1: one point one two or twelve percent. Is slightly lower
Speaker 1: than the risk associated with cannabis, but it's higher than one.
Speaker 1: That's not because I think anahistames are taking anahistamines are
Speaker 1: impairing people's ability to drive, but because I would presume
Speaker 1: that people taking anahistamines are not feeling very well that
Speaker 1: day and they may be more distracted drivers. We see
Speaker 1: the same result with penicillin, for instance. Again, i'd argue
Speaker 1: people that are sick are taking penicillin, they're more distracted drivers.
Speaker 1: Therefore they're more likely to be engaged in accidents. Driving
Speaker 1: with two or more people in the same vehicle doubles
Speaker 1: the risk of an auto accident. And certainly one can
Speaker 1: have multiple passengers in the car and you're not violating
Speaker 1: the traffic safety laws. But we know that behaviors associated
Speaker 1: with an in priest risk of accident. Tuning the radio
Speaker 1: nearly doubles one's risk of accident, and certainly some of
Speaker 1: the drugs you mentioned opioids, we associate with a doubling
Speaker 1: the risk of motor vehicle accident. Us of benzo diaz
Speaker 1: apines more than double the risk of accident. Use of
Speaker 1: amphetamines more than six times the risk of accident. So again,
Speaker 1: context here is very important. It's not saying that cannabis
Speaker 1: doesn't potentially influence some of the skills necessary to drive
Speaker 1: a vehicle safely. It's not saying that THHC positive drivers
Speaker 1: present no risk, but the risk they do present compared
Speaker 1: to so many of these other behaviors is relatively low.
Speaker 1: And let me just conclude this by saying these figures
Speaker 1: applied individuals who test positive for th HC alone, because
Speaker 1: you are absolutely correct that this risk goes up exponentially
Speaker 1: when th HC is used in combination with alcohol. I
Speaker 1: worry about the idea of passing these arbitrary, one size
Speaker 1: fits all and flexible standards. Would we know that there
Speaker 1: is so much variability here. I also think it is
Speaker 1: entirely reasonable to expect there to be a preponderance of
Speaker 1: evidence showing impairment of driving performance in order for the
Speaker 1: state or a prosecutor to get a impaired driving conviction. Again,
Speaker 1: if we're looking at this from a legal standpoint, in
Speaker 1: the majority of states right now, in order to charge
Speaker 1: somebody with driving under the influence of marijuana, the state
Speaker 1: has to establish that there was evidence the driver recently
Speaker 1: consumed cannabis and that consumption impaired their ability to drive
Speaker 1: a motor vehicle safely. I don't think that's a very
Speaker 1: difficult standard for the state to meet. And I say
Speaker 1: this from the standpoint of someone who has been a
Speaker 1: legal consultant, an advisor and involved in dozens in the
Speaker 1: defense of dozens and dozens of these sorts of prosecutions.
Speaker 1: I know the evidence that is presented in these cases.
Speaker 1: Usually the driver admits to having used cannabis. Usually there's
Speaker 1: evidence of recent use of cannabis in the car. Usually
Speaker 1: you have a person engaging in very poor performance. When
Speaker 1: the d r E is interacting with them, or when
Speaker 1: the arresting officers interacting with them, there is usually quite
Speaker 1: a bit of evidence, including the reason for the poll
Speaker 1: over itself, well, the person weaved across the media and
Speaker 1: the person refused to stop at the stop sign. That
Speaker 1: totality of evidence, I believe, is what ought to be
Speaker 1: necessary to go forward with and get a d UI conviction.
Speaker 1: That's the way we do this when it comes to
Speaker 1: other substances. Frankly, it's also the way we do prosecutions
Speaker 1: with regard to alcohol and instances where somebody seems to
Speaker 1: be based on their driving impaired by alcohol but is
Speaker 1: under the point oh eight limit. Police don't just let
Speaker 1: that person go and say, well, go ahead, go on
Speaker 1: your way. I think you're too impaired to drive, but
Speaker 1: you're under the point of wait on, nothing I can
Speaker 1: do about it. No, they charge them with d u I,
Speaker 1: and then they have to meet the same standard for
Speaker 1: a d u I alcohol conviction that they would have
Speaker 1: to meet for a d u I drug conviction. And
Speaker 1: I can tell you when we look at data with
Speaker 1: regard to drug driving convictions in states like Washington and
Speaker 1: other states, there's almost no criminal prosecution that is more
Speaker 1: likely to yield a criminal conviction than driving under the influence.
Speaker 1: I've seen no evidence that the law is not sufficient
Speaker 1: or that officers and prosecutors are unable to meet their
Speaker 1: burden of proof in these cases. Let's take a break
Speaker 1: here and go to an ADM. Well, I got a
Speaker 1: proposal for you. So, given what you said before about
Speaker 1: tolerance as well, what do you think about the idea
Speaker 1: that bureaus of Motor vehicles should be able to give
Speaker 1: a test to drivers where somebody shows up. It says
Speaker 1: I want to get a stamp on my driver's license
Speaker 1: that allows me to drive under the influence of cannabis,
Speaker 1: and that the Bureau Motor Vehicle should administer tests where
Speaker 1: people a driver gets high before driving and then has
Speaker 1: the same kind of test that they might have a
Speaker 1: similar sort of test they have, you know, like when
Speaker 1: they first get their driver's license, right, and if they
Speaker 1: can establish that their driving is unaffected by their cannabis consumption,
Speaker 1: they would get a stamp saying I'm okay to drive high.
Speaker 1: What do you think, Well, that's why I love you, Ethan.
Speaker 1: You're a big picture guy or a um I it's
Speaker 1: the first time I've heard such a proposals, the first
Speaker 1: time I've considered such a proposal, I would dare say,
Speaker 1: I think there's counter proposals that are more realistic because
Speaker 1: they're more simplistic. Look, one lesson I think we can
Speaker 1: take away from our experience with driving under the influence
Speaker 1: of alcohol is not that we need a breathalyzer test
Speaker 1: for marijuana, which I think would have no utility. But
Speaker 1: is this I'm old enough to remember when you could
Speaker 1: drive with an open container of alcohol in the car
Speaker 1: and then you couldn't because again our American culture change,
Speaker 1: the level with which we prioritize trying to discourage driving
Speaker 1: under the influence changed, and then the state's changed it
Speaker 1: along and said, you know what, if you're driving a vehicle,
Speaker 1: you simply can't have an open container of booze in
Speaker 1: the car. Doesn't matter. If you could say, well, look
Speaker 1: I just I'm drinking one beer and driving. I'm not drunk,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. The state says you can't do that.
Speaker 1: When I talk to people about this issue, you know, Ethan,
Speaker 1: they don't know a metabolite from a nanagram and they
Speaker 1: don't want to. They don't care if somebody's operating a
Speaker 1: motor vehicle with five nanograms of th HC in their
Speaker 1: blood or twenty nanagrams of carboxy TC and their urine
Speaker 1: because they don't know what those things are and they
Speaker 1: don't know what those numbers mean. What they tell me
Speaker 1: is I don't want someone smoking cot and driving. That's
Speaker 1: what they say. So why not apply a similar standard
Speaker 1: like we have with the open container law that says, look,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna get behind the wheel, there's no smoking
Speaker 1: in the car. You're not smoking your passengers aren't smoking,
Speaker 1: and if a law enforcement officer pulls you over and
Speaker 1: finds evidence that somebody's been smoking in the car, you've
Speaker 1: all violated the traffic safety law. That could be the
Speaker 1: arbitrary line I could live with, And in those cases
Speaker 1: there be no need to even try to established whether
Speaker 1: or not the person was impaired or under the influence,
Speaker 1: because they've broken the law simply by the act of
Speaker 1: using cannabis wild driving. Well, look, you're being very pragmatic here.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate that when we look around the country
Speaker 1: at the various states, are there states that are just
Speaker 1: doing this absolutely wrong with in terms of like per
Speaker 1: se amounts for marijuana, and are there some states that
Speaker 1: are doing it sort of better than most, And for
Speaker 1: that matter, what about internationally? Unfortunately, I wouldn't say there's
Speaker 1: really an example of anyone getting this totally right. But
Speaker 1: of course we do have states like say California that
Speaker 1: has had medical access now for several decades and adult
Speaker 1: use access for several years, and they've maintained the same
Speaker 1: traffic laws during this entire period of time. They have
Speaker 1: an effect based standard, which, as I mentioned earlier, is
Speaker 1: the standard that the majority of states have that say, look,
Speaker 1: this isn't about what levels you may or may not
Speaker 1: have of some compound in your blood or urine. This
Speaker 1: is about whether the state can prove you recently consumed
Speaker 1: a psychoactive substance and whether you demonstrably were impaired by
Speaker 1: that psychoactive substance while you were driving. Again, I think
Speaker 1: that's the way we do it, but I think we
Speaker 1: could do it better. I think we could have better
Speaker 1: training for drug recognition evaluators. I think we could have
Speaker 1: more of them. I think any legalization a law, or
Speaker 1: that law becoming enacted should go part and parcel with
Speaker 1: a public service campaign that alerts people to the potential
Speaker 1: risks about drug driving, that makes people aware that such
Speaker 1: behavior is illegal. I think retailers who are selling these
Speaker 1: products could be trained with regard to messaging and talking
Speaker 1: about risks of drug driving. I think there is a
Speaker 1: lot more that we could do to bring attention and
Speaker 1: awareness to this issue and to educate the consumers to
Speaker 1: dissuade them from engaging in this behavior. And then, of
Speaker 1: course there's some examples of states that I think are
Speaker 1: going about this all wrong. Washington State is a state
Speaker 1: that imposes an inflexible five nanogram per milli leader standard
Speaker 1: for the detection of th HC and blood. We can't
Speaker 1: correlate five nanograms of th HC with either recent use
Speaker 1: of cannabis or impairment. Somebody might have five nanograms of
Speaker 1: th HC because they use cannabis ninety minutes ago or
Speaker 1: because they used it five days ago. There's no ability
Speaker 1: for us to back extrapolate based on that test result.
Speaker 1: That's a bad law. Interesting. So, Paul, you know, I
Speaker 1: see all these studies coming out. You know this for
Speaker 1: years now. Did the legalization of medical merril wan these
Speaker 1: are the early studies increase auto accidents or not? And
Speaker 1: more recently, did the legalization of marij wand in a
Speaker 1: particular state increase auto accidents auto fatalities or not? Sure?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. This is probably the one question
Speaker 1: post legalization that is asked the most, either this or
Speaker 1: what's the packed on kids? Are more kids going to
Speaker 1: use marijuana after legalization than did before? Just like that question,
Speaker 1: people ask well, what's the impact on traffic safety with
Speaker 1: regard to medical marijuana laws? And I would dare say
Speaker 1: there's very few researchers that are studying the impact of
Speaker 1: medical marijuana legalization on traffic safety anymore. For quite some
Speaker 1: time there were, but now it's moved on to looking
Speaker 1: at the effect of adult use laws. But if we
Speaker 1: looked at the totality of data, looking at traffic safety
Speaker 1: trends post medical marijuana, we saw no uptick in traffic accidents.
Speaker 1: In fact, in a number of states we saw a decrease,
Speaker 1: and some studies also showed an overall decrease in accidents overall,
Speaker 1: including accidents due to alcohol and accidents due to opioids.
Speaker 1: With regard to adult use, which is what it's really
Speaker 1: more people's minds now. Initially, sort of the first wave
Speaker 1: of studies we saw coming out of Colorado and Washington.
Speaker 1: In Oregon, we saw no uptick in accident rates. And
Speaker 1: then as the pool has gotten somewhat larger, and I
Speaker 1: would dare say more importantly retail access has become more
Speaker 1: prevalent in some of these states, some of this data
Speaker 1: has gotten more inconsistent. In particular, there's some data out
Speaker 1: of Colorado that shows an uptick in accidents, and then conversely,
Speaker 1: you'll see data from a state like Thevada that, over
Speaker 1: the same period of time shows a decrease in accidents.
Speaker 1: So what to make of this? And I would dare
Speaker 1: say there is variabilities here, or there are confounding factors
Speaker 1: here that are leading to these disparate results that probably
Speaker 1: have very little to do with marijuana or the law,
Speaker 1: because when we look at say a state like Colorado
Speaker 1: that's had a very different result with regard to traffic
Speaker 1: safety than a state like Nevada, the reality is is
Speaker 1: they essentially have the same law, they have the same
Speaker 1: regulatory scheme. If marijuana was independently linked to this change
Speaker 1: in traffic safety patterns or driving habits, we should see
Speaker 1: consistent results across the board. But we're not. We're seeing
Speaker 1: a wide variation and traffic safety from state to state
Speaker 1: to state. I think that has a whole lot less
Speaker 1: to do with marijuana and marijuana law, and a whole
Speaker 1: lot more with other demographic shifts and changes in driving
Speaker 1: behavior that are taking place in some states and not
Speaker 1: others over these same periods of time. Curious given that
Speaker 1: it's a federal agency, right the National Highway Safety Traffic
Speaker 1: Safety Administration. Between the study it did net back in
Speaker 1: finding no difference between marijuana users and drug free drivers,
Speaker 1: and then you're describing this twenty fifteen study as sort
Speaker 1: of a gold standard. Has the agency been out there
Speaker 1: and basically being frank about these results, or do they
Speaker 1: feel a need to pull their punches because they don't
Speaker 1: want to be risked being seen as promoting the wrong message.
Speaker 1: That's a great question, Ethan. I'm glad you asked normal
Speaker 1: and our fact sheets, and in my messaging about cannabis
Speaker 1: and driving, I cite NITSA probably more than any other source.
Speaker 1: I cite their studies, I cite their fact sheets, I
Speaker 1: cite their website, all of which contain I would dare say,
Speaker 1: very objective, nonpartisan, non rhetorical, evidence based information about cannabis
Speaker 1: and driving and accident safety and traffic risk. Yet publicly,
Speaker 1: I'm really not aware of representatives from NITZA speaking out
Speaker 1: on this issue whatsoever. Now, let me give you an
Speaker 1: anecdote that always stood in my mind. I was asked
Speaker 1: to testify before legislative hearings in Washington State many years ago,
Speaker 1: shortly after legalization had passed, and there were hearings that
Speaker 1: were being held on drug driving, and in particular, this
Speaker 1: troubling five Dana gram standard that had been enacted part
Speaker 1: and parcel with legalization. And I flew into Olympia and
Speaker 1: I was in the office of the Member of the
Speaker 1: state Legislature who was the chair of this committee who
Speaker 1: had called for these hearings, And I said, who else
Speaker 1: are you bringing into this hearing? And he mentioned, for instance,
Speaker 1: Marilyn Houstis, who at the time worked at the n
Speaker 1: I d A and also has probably forgotten more about
Speaker 1: this issue than nine percent of people know, very well
Speaker 1: respected voice in this arena. And he mentioned another researcher
Speaker 1: who at the time had published several papers on this issue,
Speaker 1: who at the time was at Yale, but has since
Speaker 1: passed away, unfortunately. And I told him, I said, that's great,
Speaker 1: You've got a really good panel of experts here, but
Speaker 1: who you really ought to have here is someone from
Speaker 1: NITSA because they've sponsored the research that we're all going
Speaker 1: to be talking about. And he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I have a great relationship with NITSA. I've worked with
Speaker 1: agency and a number of other traffic safety issues over
Speaker 1: the years. We worked with them when we pass seatbelt
Speaker 1: legislation here in Washington State. I'm gonna take you up
Speaker 1: on that. I'm going to contact them and we're gonna
Speaker 1: hold another round of hearings and NITSA will be there. Well,
Speaker 1: sure enough, a few weeks later, they held another round
Speaker 1: of hearings, but there was no representative from NITZA testifying.
Speaker 1: So I contacted the chair once again and I said,
Speaker 1: well happened, And he said, you know, Paul, was the
Speaker 1: strangest thing. I've had good relationships with this agency for years.
Speaker 1: I've never had any issue with them, but when I
Speaker 1: talked to them about testifying on this issue, they just
Speaker 1: showed absolutely no interest. Now, as best I can tell,
Speaker 1: that hasn't changed. And it's really unfortunate because you have
Speaker 1: states and lawmakers in the public all grappling with this issue,
Speaker 1: and arguably the premier traffic safety agency in this country
Speaker 1: that actually would theoretically have a lot to say and
Speaker 1: would be listened to, is largely silo done the issue again,
Speaker 1: at least publicly. If you want to go into their
Speaker 1: website and their archives, you will find most of the
Speaker 1: information we've discussed today. Yeah, it sounds a lot like
Speaker 1: National stud on drug abuse, which is only slightly beginning
Speaker 1: to evolve now. But we exist in order to find
Speaker 1: what's wrong with drugs. To study drug abuse not drug
Speaker 1: use or safety or levels of safety. And it sounds
Speaker 1: like NITZA was a little bit in the same situation
Speaker 1: where they would find themselves hearing a headline in which
Speaker 1: it says NITZA officer explains that marijuana presents relatively low
Speaker 1: level of risk compared to a B, C, D, E F.
Speaker 1: And g let me tell you this ethan Nitza study
Speaker 1: that took place at Virginia Beach, argueing the most important
Speaker 1: study we have on this issue. It used the very
Speaker 1: same methodology that was used to develop the initial per
Speaker 1: se standards for driving under the infants of alcohol. This
Speaker 1: study took years to conduct. I remember waiting for so
Speaker 1: long for the results of this report. Are Remember an
Speaker 1: interaction I had with Marilyn Houstons at a conference several
Speaker 1: years earlier where we were debating different studies, and we
Speaker 1: agreed that I said, when Nitza comes out with the study,
Speaker 1: I will live or die by the results of that study,
Speaker 1: because that's really going to tell us what we need
Speaker 1: to know. And we both agreed on that. I recall
Speaker 1: when they dropped that study. They did so on a
Speaker 1: Friday afternoon at about four thirty in the afternoon, before
Speaker 1: a three day weekend, before a holiday on Monday. That
Speaker 1: study was not meant to get any attention. A very
Speaker 1: interesting So, Paul, what about other types of marijuana and locomotion?
Speaker 1: Like I remember hearing forever that, well, you know, the
Speaker 1: risks of marijuana driving are typically overstated, but when it
Speaker 1: comes to flying, what pilots need and simulators there there's
Speaker 1: a really negative result. And then conversely, I was sort
Speaker 1: of prepping for my conversation when you looked at marijuana
Speaker 1: and bicycling and it was a little study saying no impact.
Speaker 1: And then I wonder about these things that show people
Speaker 1: who are motor boating, you know, having more accidents, and
Speaker 1: is it because of alcohol or marijuana? But what can
Speaker 1: you tell us about marijuana's effect on other types of locomotion?
Speaker 1: Not as much. Again, the focus here has really been
Speaker 1: on driving. And when we talk about the skills that
Speaker 1: are influenced by cannabis, again we're talking about skills that
Speaker 1: really overlap with some of the skills needed to drive
Speaker 1: a motor vehicle safely. I'm not a pilot. I would
Speaker 1: imagine there are a whole lot more and perhaps different
Speaker 1: skill sets that are necessary to operate or fly a
Speaker 1: plane safely, then might be to drive a motor vehicle safely.
Speaker 1: Or perhaps I'm wrong and there's a lot of overlap
Speaker 1: and they're very similar. I really don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: think break latency perhaps would be an issue with flying
Speaker 1: in a jet airliner for instance, same thing with motor boating.
Speaker 1: So again, I think those are things that theoretically we
Speaker 1: can speculate about, but there's very little data. There was
Speaker 1: a study, a very famous study you might remember it
Speaker 1: Ethan that looked at pilots or used a flight simulator study,
Speaker 1: and it looked at individuals who were users of marijuana
Speaker 1: but hadn't used marijuana in the previous twenty four hours
Speaker 1: that showed their performance on a flight simulator was horror
Speaker 1: than those individuals who didn't use marijuana at all. And
Speaker 1: the federal government would trought out this study, probably for
Speaker 1: the first decade and a half of my work at
Speaker 1: normal the claim that marijuana could impact your cognitive and
Speaker 1: behavioral skills for twenty four hours later. But I haven't
Speaker 1: seen anyone talk about that. That studied a while, and
Speaker 1: I can say when the time came to replicate those results,
Speaker 1: they were not replicated. And I haven't heard much about
Speaker 1: it since. Would you have any problem knowing that your
Speaker 1: uber or lift driver was a daily marijuana consumer. I
Speaker 1: would not. I would have a problem if I was
Speaker 1: aware or if they notified me of the fact that
Speaker 1: they had just consumed marijuana. And the prior six minutes
Speaker 1: are thirty minutes before picking me up, you know. Paul
Speaker 1: also thinking about some of the absurdities of the marijuana
Speaker 1: laws and the number of states where the penalty for
Speaker 1: marijuana possession was having your driver's license taken away even
Speaker 1: if you were you know, stopped or arrested just taking
Speaker 1: a walk on the street or in a park or
Speaker 1: what have you. And I wonder what's happened with those
Speaker 1: laws and how do they ever get going in the
Speaker 1: first place. So those laws are the passage of those
Speaker 1: laws predated me. When I first came on board in
Speaker 1: the mid ninety nineties, we were engaged in a push
Speaker 1: going from state to state to repeal those laws, and
Speaker 1: that push has largely been successful. I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: there are there maybe one or two states that maintain
Speaker 1: those penalties, with the overwhelming majority of states did not,
Speaker 1: although in that case the law was linking the punishment
Speaker 1: for marijuana with driving. This had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: driving safety. It had to do with way is. The
Speaker 1: government was seeking to coerce behavior. Okay, there's an understanding
Speaker 1: that we live in a society that in most places
Speaker 1: in this country, one requires a motor vehicle and a
Speaker 1: license to get from place to place, to get to
Speaker 1: their job, to get to school, wherever it may be.
Speaker 1: So punishing a person for engaging certain behaviors by restricting
Speaker 1: or pulling that license, that is a very significant penalty.
Speaker 1: So the idea here was the coerce people to change
Speaker 1: behavior that they wouldn't otherwise change. The government realized that
Speaker 1: simply criminalizing marijuana wasn't enough to get people to change
Speaker 1: their behavior. To threaten to punish people with incarceration or
Speaker 1: arrest wasn't necessarily enough. But this idea of taking away
Speaker 1: their license for long periods of time, perhaps that would
Speaker 1: be enough to get these people to change their behavior.
Speaker 1: That was the thinking behind that law. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you this, Ethan, it was the thinking behind the initial
Speaker 1: person say laws that were passed for cannabis and driving.
Speaker 1: And I can say that with certainty because I was
Speaker 1: at the conferences, the government sponsored conferences where du Pont
Speaker 1: and others were there articulating from the podium that these
Speaker 1: laws weren't about traffic safety, they weren't about impairment, they
Speaker 1: were about compelling people to stop using marijuana. You should
Speaker 1: explain who du Pont is, not the chemical company, but
Speaker 1: Bob DuPont, Robert DuPont, who was what might have been
Speaker 1: described as the drugs are that they didn't really call
Speaker 1: it back to under the gerald Ford administration in the
Speaker 1: mid seventies, and initially a supporter of cannabis decriminalization, who
Speaker 1: then took a radical turn in the other direction, claiming
Speaker 1: with some basis I guess that he was concerned about
Speaker 1: increasing analysts and marijuana use, but then became a proponent
Speaker 1: of essentially drug testing all of American society. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: I won't go any further in describing him. Well, Paul,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this has been a fascinating conversation. And
Speaker 1: the last thing I want to ask you is it
Speaker 1: sounds like an addition to testifying before state legislatures and
Speaker 1: other committees. You've also had a fair bit of experience
Speaker 1: testifying as an expert witness in cases involving marijuana and driving,
Speaker 1: and any major takeaways or highlights of those experiences. Yes,
Speaker 1: don't believe representatives of law enforcement when they publicly say
Speaker 1: they lack the skills and the tools to identify people
Speaker 1: driving under the influence of cannabis. I know that every
Speaker 1: time this discussion comes up in the state, you're going
Speaker 1: to hear from law enforcement and cops who are going
Speaker 1: to say that they're gonna put out that narrative. But
Speaker 1: let me tell you this. Those same police officers, when
Speaker 1: they're in a court of law, and I've been in
Speaker 1: courts of law with them in dozens of cases involving
Speaker 1: alleged drug driving behavior, when they take the stand and
Speaker 1: they are asked, officers such and such, what led you
Speaker 1: to believe that the defendant was under the influence of marijuana?
Speaker 1: You know what? They don't say, Ethan, They don't say,
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta be honest with you, we don't
Speaker 1: really have a good tool to determine if someone's under
Speaker 1: the infant of marijuana. No, they take the stand and
Speaker 1: they say, well, let me tell you all the ways
Speaker 1: that I know this defendants under the influence of marijuana.
Speaker 1: They go into their years of training, they go into
Speaker 1: their skills, they say, we've done a field sobriety tests,
Speaker 1: we have a toxicology reasult. All of my training led
Speaker 1: me to be able to identify. I could smell marijuana.
Speaker 1: I saw the redness in their eyes, they had slurred speech.
Speaker 1: I've gone through the ride training that NITZA provide. They
Speaker 1: will go on and on about their qualifications and their
Speaker 1: expertise in determining whether someone's under the infants of marijuana.
Speaker 1: So the fact is police, by their own admission, already
Speaker 1: have adequate and sufficient tools to make these determinations. That
Speaker 1: should not be an impediment to changing the legal status
Speaker 1: for the responsible possession and use of Canadas. Uh So
Speaker 1: your takeaway now, your basic harm reduction advisory with marijuana,
Speaker 1: Do I take it to be if you smoke marijuana,
Speaker 1: don't drive in the first hour, don't mix with other drugs?
Speaker 1: What else? Absolutely? And I want to be very clear
Speaker 1: on this. It Adorable's position is to represent the responsible
Speaker 1: cannabis use and the responsible cannabis consumer. And you can
Speaker 1: go right to our website and find a resolution that
Speaker 1: was enacted now several decades ago by Normal's Board of
Speaker 1: Directors about our policy with regard to drug driving and
Speaker 1: it says right there in black and white, do not
Speaker 1: operate a motor vehicle or heavy macher ary if one
Speaker 1: is under the influence of marijuana. So again, our position
Speaker 1: is very lear on this. We know that the window
Speaker 1: of impairment is generally most acute during that first hour,
Speaker 1: but can extend to about three to four hours. So look,
Speaker 1: don't drive during that period of time. Don't consume alcohol
Speaker 1: with cannabis and even consider driving. Be aware of your tolerance,
Speaker 1: be an educated consumer to understand that the greater the potency,
Speaker 1: the greater dose, the more acute effect it can have.
Speaker 1: Understand that even individuals who are habitual users of cannabis
Speaker 1: still experience a synergistic adverse effect when they use cannabis
Speaker 1: with alcohol. Understand that the length of time and type
Speaker 1: of impairment and duration of impairment and time of onset
Speaker 1: is going to be very different if one inhales cannabis
Speaker 1: versus if they take it orally. Again, there's a lot
Speaker 1: to understand and unpack here, but a lot of this
Speaker 1: is really just basic social responsibility. All of us drive
Speaker 1: on the same roads. All of us want safe roads,
Speaker 1: none of us want impaired drivers on the road, and
Speaker 1: our goal in changing marijuana policy is did not inadvertently
Speaker 1: impact traffic safety. That's not what we're about doing. We
Speaker 1: want to change the marri WAA laws and strengthen traffic
Speaker 1: safe and for the people who are gonna smoke marijuana
Speaker 1: and drive. Nonetheless, are there tips? When I think about
Speaker 1: I would say, hey, you know, you gotta make that
Speaker 1: extra effort to look in the rear view inside view mirror.
Speaker 1: You have to check your speed because you may be
Speaker 1: driving at a dangerously slow speed. If something happens in
Speaker 1: front of you, be aware that you're somewhat altered, and
Speaker 1: therefore pull over or stop. You know, the little kind
Speaker 1: of tips for people who are high and know they're high,
Speaker 1: still want to drive, basically feel safe, have a high
Speaker 1: level of tolerance, but are not anything else you would
Speaker 1: add to that. Again, be aware of what the data shows.
Speaker 1: Be aware that you're more likely to weave if one
Speaker 1: is in that condition. For instance, be aware that your
Speaker 1: reaction time might be compromised, so make sure you're not tailgating. Obviously, Again,
Speaker 1: be aware of the evidence and try to act accordingly.
Speaker 1: One final thing I might say too, is this idea
Speaker 1: about having a targeted messaging a targeted p S A
Speaker 1: campaign making people aware of these facts and really being
Speaker 1: particular who we target, because we know through data that
Speaker 1: the people most likely to not take this advice, that
Speaker 1: are most likely to drive behind the wheel are younger drivers,
Speaker 1: drivers who are less experienced with their use of cannabis,
Speaker 1: and also less experienced drivers. So these are the people
Speaker 1: that potentially are at the greatest risk, and those are
Speaker 1: the folks that I think our efforts really need to
Speaker 1: be targeted toward. And also one way we might be
Speaker 1: able to reduce that behavior is by not criminalizing use
Speaker 1: of cannabis in certain places, because I would dare say
Speaker 1: the reason many young people smoke cannabis behind the wheel
Speaker 1: and many older people don't is because young people are
Speaker 1: looking for a place to clandestinely use cannabis and they
Speaker 1: think they can get in their car and drive out
Speaker 1: on a rural road and that way they won't get caught. Well,
Speaker 1: they may not be caught by their parents, but again
Speaker 1: they're engaging in activity that creates a greater societal risk
Speaker 1: for all of us. Paul, on that note, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you ever so much for sharing your wisdom
Speaker 1: with me and the listeners to Psychoactive, so thank you
Speaker 1: and I hope to see you soon. The feelings mutual, Ethan,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me and it's been fun. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it, or
Speaker 1: you can write us a review at Apple podcast or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear from
Speaker 1: our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories
Speaker 1: comes to ideas, then leave us a message at one
Speaker 1: eight three three seven seven nine six that's eight three
Speaker 1: three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive
Speaker 1: at protozoa dot com or find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Ethan natal Man. You can also find contact information in
Speaker 1: our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Naedelman's
Speaker 1: produced by Noham Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers
Speaker 1: are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky
Speaker 1: from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is by
Speaker 1: Ari Blucien and a special thanks to ab Brio, s
Speaker 1: F Bianca Grimshaw, and Robert bb Next week I'll be
Speaker 1: talked with the founder of Normal, the marijuana consumer organization.
Speaker 1: He's Keith Strap and will be focusing on the first
Speaker 1: generation of marijuana reform. Back in the nineteen seventies, I
Speaker 1: had been smoking for five or six years, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't understand why it was considered a crime and why
Speaker 1: so many people were having their lives wrecked. To me,
Speaker 1: it was just a milder version and a safer version
Speaker 1: of using alcohol. And so I thought, let's start a
Speaker 1: lobby to legalize marijuana. And in the October of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy we farmed Normal, and because of my work with
Speaker 1: Ralph Nader, we farmed it as a consumer lobby, and
Speaker 1: the consumer in this case, of course, it's the marijuana smoker.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to Cycleactive now see it, don't miss it.