Virginia authorities introduced the outcomes of a current survey on the risks of cannabis-impaired driving, however issues didn’t go precisely as deliberate: Officers stated that the survey reveals “unsettling” and “alarming” attitudes about how secure it’s to drive when underneath the affect of pot.
The Virginia Hashish Management Authority (CCA) launched new survey outcomes that measure Virginians’ attitudes towards hashish use and driving based on an October 25 press release.
Stratacomm, a public affairs consulting agency, performed the survey and acquired over 750 responses representing a demographic cross-section of Virginia residents ages 16 and older.
About 23% of respondents reported consuming hashish prior to now three months and about 14% of Virginia drivers who have been surveyed stated that they’ve pushed excessive a number of occasions or extra prior to now yr.
Nearly one-third of these surveyed imagine hashish makes them a safer driver. You will need to keep in mind, nevertheless, that some respondents are solely 16 years of age, barely sufficiently old to drive. It’d make the free attitudes about driving security simpler to think about.
The info reveals that Virginians don’t understand cannabis-impaired driving to be practically as harmful as different dangerous behaviors—like ingesting and driving: 60% of respondents view texting and driving and 49% regard alcohol-impaired driving to be “extraordinarily harmful,” however solely 1 / 4 of Virginians—26%—view cannabis-impaired driving as “extraordinarily harmful.”
The CCA will use the survey outcomes to develop a secure driving marketing campaign mandated by the 2021 Normal Meeting that can spotlight the risks of cannabis-impaired driving, which is about to launch in January 2023.
The CCA has their work lower out for them. “These outcomes are worrying and underscore the Normal Meeting was proper to direct the CCA to undertake a secure driving marketing campaign,” stated John Keohane, CCA Board Chair and retired Police Chief of Hopewell, Virginia.
“As a public security and public well being company, the CCA presently has no better precedence than making a well-funded, aggressive, and sustained marketing campaign geared toward decreasing the incidence of marijuana-impaired driving,” added Jeremy Preiss, the CCA’s Performing Head and Chief Officer for Regulatory, Coverage, and Exterior Affairs.
The findings additionally counsel that not all Virginians who devour hashish do it responsibly: 47% of hashish customers who have been surveyed reported they don’t at all times have a plan for a sober journey and 24% of respondents indicating they’ve been a passenger in a automobile operated by a excessive driver greater than as soon as prior to now yr.
“The CCA desires to empower Virginians to make knowledgeable selections about marijuana use and guarantee folks perceive that working a automobile whereas underneath the affect of marijuana is extraordinarily harmful,” concluded Brianna Bonat, the CCA’s lead public well being official.
The CCA invitations people who find themselves excited about studying extra public well being and security data associated to hashish to go to cannabis.virginia.gov.
Efforts to advertise secure driving with hashish are lively on the federal degree as properly. The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) commissioned a report about instructional campaigns on hashish and driving on July 26. The GHSA partnered with Nationwide Alliance to Cease Impaired Driving to create a playbook written particularly for State Freeway Security Workplaces (SHSO).
Comparable efforts to pinpoint the necessity for security for individuals who devour hashish is ongoing in Canada as properly. Analysis printed within the Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal in April 2021 was performed by a analysis crew related to Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish Normal Hospital in Montreal and located comparable attitudes and misinformation about driving underneath the affect of pot.