There’s generally much less awareness about drug driving than drink driving, but drug driving convictions nearly tripled over three years from 2017 to 2020, when almost 14,000 people got a conviction. They’ve shot up partly because the police are more on it, and roadside checks and testing have improved, but there’ll be many more people than this driving under the influence and not getting stopped, but still risking harming themselves, their passengers, other road users and those just unlucky enough to be close by!
Cannabis is a bit unique, in that you can be affected by cannabis passively through inhaling other people’s smoke, especially if you’re in a confined space with a number of people smoking. I was told a story of a driver that never drank or used drugs and so was always the designated driver. She’d been at a party where lots of people were smoking weed, and on the journey home there was a sudden bump, and she thought she’d run over something she just hadn’t seen. It turned out it was a raised mini roundabout and not someone’s cat, or a small child, but the way other people’s cannabis smoke had slowed down her thinking and reaction times has stuck with her ever since. The effects would have been much more acute if she’d been smoking herself, or using other substances for that matter.
Please take care of yourselves and your friends, and don’t get behind the wheel if you’ve used alcohol or drugs – or even been around people smoking weed….. and don’t be their passenger either!!
