car crashes 2

Lt. Kevin Bartlett of the Vallejo Police Department said that marijuana was found in the car and that the driver was at a medical marijuana dispensary in town prior to the crash. While Bartlett said that it’s not certain whether that played a role in the collision, it is being looked at, among other things.

The autopsy showed Foster had a .098 milligrams-per-liter level of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the intoxicating ingredient of marijuana. Pearson said that is a significant level.
“That indicates very recent use,” she said. “I would say she used marijuana within a half-hour or an hour before she died.”

A teen accused of killing 16-year-old Broomfield High School student Chad Britton in a November car accident near the school was driving under the influence of marijuana, according to police.
He got behind the wheel of his car after smoking weed, even though a friend tried to persuade him not to drive, police officers testified at a preliminary hearing Tuesday.
The 17-year-old driver, who authorities have not identified because he is a minor, is accused of killing Britton by hitting him with the car. The teen is suspected of smoking marijuana before the crash, and had only had his drivers license for six days, police testified.

They reported that Colorado underwent a significant increase in the proportion of drivers in a fatal motor vehicle crash who were marijuana-positive after the commercialization of medical marijuana in the middle of 2009. The increase in Colorado was significantly greater compared to the 34 non-medical marijuana states from mid-2009 to 2011.

During the last three years, Metro's forensics lab screened 4,500 blood samples for marijuana with the bulk of those being impaired drivers.
Metro said marijuana is dangerous because it slows down mental reactions and a driver's judgment of time and distance. Statewide records from 2002 to 2012 show 45 percent of drivers who were impaired by drugs had marijuana in their system.

• Drugged driving kills an average of two people per week in Colorado. That’s more than four times the number of deaths of Columbine and Century Theater combined.
• One half of those deaths are caused by marijuana use.
• Deaths caused by drugged driving are increasing at the same time overall traffic deaths are decreasing. The most rapidly increasing cause of drugged driving deaths is marijuana use.
• Fatalities caused by drivers who tested positive for marijuana increased 26 percent.

Cannabinol, a remnant of marijuana, was found in 12.2 percent of those deceased drivers during 2010, (up from 4.2 percent in 1999). Pot was the most common non-alcoholic drug detected by those toxicology screenings.

Institute for Behavioral and Health- 
The threat to public safety on the roadways posed by marijuana-impaired driving has been pushed to the top of nation’s agenda by the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington as well as by the legalization of “medical” marijuana in 18 states and the District of Columbia. Marijuana has significant impairing psychological and physiological effects on driving.