A new study by University of Calgary and Dalhousie University researchers has revealed how much cannabis affects driving performance relative to another common drug involved in crashes: alcohol.
Sarah Simmons, PhD, when she was a doctoral student at UCalgary, the meta-analysis is the first of its kind to focus on driving performance and behaviour within the context of combined cannabis and alcohol consumption.
Especially because the two drugs are generally thought of as having opposite effects on speed, we were interested in what happens when the two are combined.
When used alone, cannabis has similar effects on driving as that of low blood alcohol concentrations.
Although drivers under the influence of cannabis slowed their driving speed, which may reflect attempts to compensate somewhat for the impaired state, those drivers still demonstrated reduced lateral control of the vehicle.
The University of Calgary acknowledges the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, which includes the Blackfoot Confederacy .