Marijuana shoppers reply higher to anti-impaired driving messaging that’s rooted in “realistic” portrayals of the difficulty that keep away from stoner stereotypes, in accordance with new analysis from AAA.
The group launched a pair of research on Wednesday that examined each how hashish customers view the subject of impaired driving and self-reported habits behind the wheel, in addition to methods to discourage working autos after consuming marijuana.
With know-how on detecting lively impairment from THC nonetheless in its infancy, the research goal to tell the talk and supply potential options to mitigate the dangers related to driving below the affect.
One of the important thing takeaways is that marijuana customers are extra inclined to answer public security messaging that focuses on private duty—however not those who stigmatize hashish shoppers or veer out of the lane of info.
“Effective messaging about cannabis-impaired driving needs to include credible voices, real-world scenarios, and respectful language,” Jake Nelson, AAA’s director of visitors security advocacy, mentioned in a press launch. “Individuals who consume cannabis come from all walks of life and that should be reflected in the messaging.”
The examine—titled “Development and Validation of Messaging to Deter Cannabis Impaired Driving”—discovered that focus teams of marijuana shoppers had been most receptive to messages that had been “positive,” “realistic,” “avoided stereotypes” and “reflected diversity.”
“The ranking exercise indicated that messages that highlighted personal responsibility and safety concerns performed better than messages based on legal risks and separating cannabis use from driving,” AAA’s Foundation for Traffic Safety discovered.
Here are the top-rated messages from the rating examine:
- Driving excessive isn’t simply reckless; it’s egocentric. Think twice earlier than getting behind the wheel after utilizing marijuana.
- You wouldn’t drink and drive, so why drive excessive? Don’t drive below the affect of marijuana.
- Marijuana impairs your judgement, slows your reactions, and will increase your threat of crashing. Don’t drive excessive.
Interestingly, the researchers famous that the top-ranked message was developed by AI through ChatGPT, reasonably than by way of the main target group ideation course of.
Also with respect to messaging technique, 39 % of respondents mentioned they’d belief advisories about hashish use and driving from trade teams. Another 37 % mentioned it’d be efficient to listen to these messages from marijuana manufacturers.
“There is pertinent need to identify effective means of persuading cannabis users not to get behind the wheel while they are under the influence. However, this effort needs to be thoughtful and planned out,” AAA mentioned. “Risk messaging that might seem intuitive may, in fact, be ineffective, and thus it is important to screen and validate risk messages.”
To that time, the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been making ready a collection of public education campaigns meant to deter driving after using marijuana—notably selecting messaging that leans into hashish tradition, reasonably than peddling adverse stereotypes about shoppers as government-backed PSAs have traditionally performed.
AAA said the motivation to conduct this latest research was primarily based on the increasing legalization motion, in addition to surveys on marijuana use and driving habits.
For instance, AAA discovered that 44 % of respondents self-reported utilizing hashish a number of occasions per day, and about 58 % mentioned they drive day by day. Eighty-five % mentioned they’ve pushed on the identical day they used marijuana, together with 53 % who mentioned they consumed an hour or much less earlier than driving.
That could also be partly pushed by the truth that hashish shoppers imagine they drive both the identical (47 %), a little bit higher (15 %) or significantly better (19 %) after utilizing marijuana.
“Understanding what motivates cannabis consumers to drive under the influence can be helpful in developing effective safety strategies,” David Yang, president and govt director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, mentioned. “With insights on perceptions, decision-making, and behavior, we aim to inform policies and interventions that make our roads safer for everyone.”
It needs to be famous that AAA has traditionally advocated in opposition to marijuana reform, lobbying to dam legalization efforts in states corresponding to Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland, for instance. Advocates have accused the group of counting on “misinformation and propaganda” in these efforts.
“One would hope that AAA would be nonpartisan in this debate; that they would be the group to separate the facts from the myths so that politicians and law enforcement would be more likely to pursue evidence-based policies with regard to regulating marijuana in a manner that strengthens public safety,” NORML mentioned in 2017. “Instead they’re largely fear-mongering and further politicizing the issue—calling for the continued criminalization and arrest of millions of Americans who choose to use marijuana privately and responsibly.”
It ought to additional be famous that, whereas AAA is suggesting that the enlargement of the legalization motion raises the danger of extra rampant impaired driving, different research and experiences have contradicted that place.
For instance, a scientific evaluation of accessible proof on the connection between hashish and driving that was launched final October discovered that most research “reported no significant linear correlations between blood THC and measures of driving,” though there was an noticed relationship between ranges of the cannabinoid and diminished efficiency in some extra advanced driving conditions.
“The consensus is that there is no linear relationship of blood THC to driving,” the paper concluded. “This is surprising given that blood THC is used to detect cannabis-impaired driving.”
That report was certainly not the primary analysis to problem the favored view that THC blood ranges are an acceptable proxy for driving impairment. In 2015, as an illustration, NHTSA concluded that it’s “difficult to establish a relationship between a person’s THC blood or plasma concentration and performance impairing effects,” including that “it is inadvisable to try and predict effects based on blood THC concentrations alone.”
In a separate report final yr, NHTSA mentioned there’s “relatively little research” backing the idea that THC concentration in the blood can be used to determine impairment, once more calling into query legal guidelines in a number of states that set “per se” limits for cannabinoid metabolites.
“Several states have determined legal per se definitions of cannabis impairment, but relatively little research supports their relationship to crash risk,” that report says. “Unlike the research consensus that establishes a clear correlation between [blood alcohol content] and crash risk, drug concentration in blood does not correlate to driving impairment.”
Similarly, a Department of Justice (DOJ) researcher mentioned final yr that states may need to “get away from that idea” that marijuana impairment can be tested based on the concentration of THC in a person’s system.
“If you have chronic users versus infrequent users, they have very different concentrations correlated to different effects,” Frances Scott, a bodily scientist on the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Office of Investigative and Forensic Sciences below DOJ, mentioned.
That challenge was additionally examined in a latest federally funded examine that recognized two different methods of more accurately testing for recent THC use that accounts for the truth that metabolites of the cannabinoid can keep current in an individual’s system for weeks or months after consumption.
Back in 2022, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) despatched a letter to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and NHTSA seeking an update on the status of a federal report into testing THC-impaired drivers. The division was required to finish the report under a large-scale infrastructure bill that then-President Joe Biden (D) signed, however it missed that deadline and is unclear how much longer it will take.
Last summer season, a congressional report for a Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) invoice mentioned that the House Appropriations Committee “continues to support the development of an objective standard to measure marijuana impairment and a related field sobriety test to ensure highway safety.”
A examine revealed in 2019 concluded that those that drive on the authorized THC restrict—which is often between two to 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood—were not statistically more likely to be involved in an accident in comparison with individuals who haven’t used marijuana.
Separately, the Congressional Research Service in 2019 determined that whereas “marijuana consumption can affect a person’s response times and motor performance … studies of the impact of marijuana consumption on a driver’s risk of being involved in a crash have produced conflicting results, with some studies finding little or no increased risk of a crash from marijuana usage.”
Another examine from 2022 discovered that smoking CBD-rich marijuana had “no significant impact” on driving ability, even though all examine individuals exceeded the per se restrict for THC of their blood.
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