Canada Safety Council warns against smoking marijuana and getting behind the wheel
Posted December 3, 2014 7:44 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The holiday season is in full swing, and with it comes a new warning in the battle against impaired driving. Only this warning doesn’t just focus on booze.
Lynn Lau with the Canada Safety Council says the attention was focused on drinking and driving for years, but has only recently turned to discouraging people from driving after using marijuana.
“It’s just always been everywhere, the whole drinking and driving message. It took decades for the message to get out there. Everybody knew people who had died drinking and driving,” says Lau, a self-proclaimed “child of the 90s” when anti-drinking-and-driving campaigns really began to get traction.
But she says awareness is expanding. “I think with the drug-impaired driving, that message hasn’t gotten out there as much.”
“So we just want to encourage all drivers to have a word with themselves when they’re getting behind the wheel after a night out to pay attention and to ask themselves if they are really safe to drive.”
That is even more true when mixing booze and drugs.
“There are misconceptions out there that maybe if you take marijuana, because it is such a different drug than alcohol, maybe it’s safer to drive. We do know that drivers who have had marijuana sometimes over-compensate. When you’ve had a bit of alcohol, you feel more confident and that confidence mixed with the slower processing of having had some weed, that is a really toxic combination as far as your ability to drive.”
The message comes on National Safe Driving Week, which runs until December 7th.
