Canada - Findings on volume of serious traffic accidents post legalisation

[Pikey]

Canada's cannabis legalization and drivers' traffic-injury presentations to emergency departments in Ontario and Alberta, 2015-2019 - PubMed

Implementation of the Cannabis Act was not associated with evidence of significant post-legalization changes in traffic-injury ED visits in Ontario or Alberta among all drivers or youth drivers, in particular.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Results: There was no evidence of significant changes associated with cannabis legalization on post-legalization weekly counts of drivers' traffic-injury ED visits in: (1) Alberta, all drivers (n = 52,752 traffic-injury presentations), an increase of 9.17 visits (95 % CI -18.85; 37.20; p = 0.52); (2) Alberta, youth drivers (n = 3265 presentations), a decrease of 0.66 visits (95 % CI -2.26; 0.94; p = 0.42); (3) Ontario, all drivers (n = 186,921 presentations), an increase of 28.93 visits (95 % CI -26.32; 84.19; p = 0.30); and (4) Ontario, youth drivers (n = 4565), an increase of 0.09 visits (95 % CI -6.25; 6.42; p = 0.98).

Canada: Marijuana Legalization Not Associated with Upticks in Vehicular Accidents Resulting in Emergency Room Visits

Authors found "no evidence” that legalization was associated with short-term changes in traffic safety.

norml.org

Authors reported: “The current study found no evidence that the implementation of the Cannabis Act was associated with significant changes in post-legalization patterns of all drivers’ traffic-injury ED visits or, more specifically, youth-driver traffic-injury ED presentations. … Given that Canada’s Cannabis Act mandated that the Canadian Parliament review the public health consequences of the Act no later than 2023, the findings of the current study can provide empirical data not only for the Canadian evaluation of the calculus of harms and benefits, but also for other international jurisdictions weighing the merits and drawbacks of cannabis legalization policies.”

 

[Anoma]

Nice find. I think we all discussed this previously in a news thread where some people in the USA tried to use the reasoning that legalisation would increase certain things and I was wondering how after 10 years in Colorado and Washington state, they don't just look at the statistics.

I guess we know why now, because they don't want to admit they're wrong.