Legalizing marijuana is a stated priority for Justin Trudeau’s newly elected Liberal government. While Canadians still have a bit of time to get used to the idea – full legalization could be two years away – it’s safe to say that legal pot is coming to a dispensary near you in the not-so-distant future.
For a significant portion of the population, the legalization of marijuana is something of a non-issue. While concerns over addiction, motor vehicle accidents, and public safety linger, a recent Forum Research survey found that approximately 30 per cent of Canadian adults would potentially purchase legal marijuana, including 18 per cent who said they’d used pot in the past year.
“Now that marijuana is a likelihood rather than a vague promise, Canadians are considering the issue more closely than in the past,” said Forum Research’s President, Lorne Bozinoff. “They are just as much in favour of legalization as they were before the election, if not more, but they want to see it strictly licensed and controlled, not grown in basements and sold in corner stores.”
The potential economic benefits of legalizing weed are a staple of the pro-legalization platform. In Colorado, where the first legal marijuana dispensaries opened in early 2014, the state government has collected $60 million in tax revenue and a further $13 million in licensing and fees. With Canada’s larger potential customer base, the country could be looking at nearly $1 billion per year in tax revenues.
However, while optimistic pundits laud legal weed’s potential as a governmental revenue driver, the potential for misuse and abuse continues to cause concern. Before legalization came into effect in Colorado, citizens naturally voiced worry about stoned drivers causing motor vehicle accidents and generally making roads less safe.
These concerns are not unfounded: when Colorado legalized medical marijuana in 2001, it saw a sudden increase in drivers with weed in their systems. Indeed, a study from Columbia University states: “as medical marijuana sales expanded into 20 states, legal weed was detected in the bodies of dead drivers three times more often during 2010 when compared to those who died behind the wheel in 1999.”
Despite that less than encouraging statistic, fatalities from motor vehicle accidents are down from their 2011 levels in both Colorado and Washington, where marijuana is also legal. While the number of drivers who were found to have marijuana in their systems has doubled in Colorado, the number of drivers over the legal limit has not risen substantially. In short, it is thus far difficult to determine whether legal marijuana has had a significant impact on road safety in the United States.
That being said, Canadian law enforcement can still learn from their colleagues to the south.
“We have talked to our counterparts in Colorado, and this is very preliminary, but they have seen an increase of impaired driving with marijuana use,” said Clive Weighill, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. “But it’s so preliminary yet. It could be that the police are looking for it a bit more because it’s legalized.”
While a recent study from the United States’ National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded that alcohol consumption is much more likely to result in motor vehicle accidents than marijuana, the bottom line is that pot slows reaction time and impairs judgement, and should never be consumed prior to driving.
If you or a member of you family has been injured on the road, contact one of Neinstein Personal Injury Lawyers’ motor vehicle injury lawyers today for a free, no-obligation consultation.
Greg Neinstein
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