Get ready for high times on the highway.
As New York moves toward legalizing recreational marijuana, the instances of motorists driving while stoned is likely to surge, if the past experience of weed-legal states is any indicator.
In Colorado, where pot sales began in 2014, 69 percent of pot users said they had driven while high at least once in the past year and 27 percent said they drove stoned almost daily, according to preliminary survey results released by that state’s transportation department in April.
The number of fatal car accidents in Colorado increased by 40 percent from 2013 to 2015.
And drivers in fatal accidents testing positive for pot rose by 145 percent from 2013 to 2016, according to a 2017 Denver Post analysis.
The level of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in one deceased driver was a staggering 68 nanograms per milliliter. The legal limit in Colorado is 5.
And as more motorists got stoned, there was no parallel plunge in drivers getting drunk. In fact, drivers who tested positive for alcohol in fatal crashes rose 17 percent from 2013 to 2015, the newspaper reported.
In Washington state, where pot sales began in July 2014, 20 percent of those driving during the daytime are high, up from less than 10 percent before legalization, a state survey found.
And the number of motorists who tested positive for both alcohol and drugs following a fatal crash has increased 15 percent every year since 2012, according to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.
The increase was so alarming that the state did a survey of residents between 18 and 65 to determine what was behind the reefer madness. The survey showed that 9 percent of residents were driving after both drinking and using marijuana, said Shelly Baldwin, legislative and media director for the Traffic Safety Commission.
“What we found with people who drive after using marijuana is there’s a belief, an erroneous belief, among them that marijuana makes their driving better, which is silly,” Baldwin said.
“Nobody drives better because they’ve taken anything.”
In Massachusetts, where a handful of stores began selling weed in November, a state commission is recommending that drivers who seem to be under the influence face an automatic license
suspension if they fail to submit to a drug test done with blood, saliva, or an evaluation that includes a urine test.
Gov. Cuomo announced he would push to make recreational pot legal in 2019, a measure that is likely to be supported by what will be a Democrat-controlled state Legislature. Mayor de Blasio has said he backs legalization with a minimum age of 21 and no public smoking.
NYC Police Commissioner James O’Neill has said his biggest concern about legal weed is people who drive under its influence because there is no breath test to detect pot use.
“It requires drug recognition experts and we’re going to need some time to get more people up to speed,” O’Neill said.