A new report from the Governors Highway Safety Association (“GHSA”) has found that, in 2016, 44 percent of fatally-injured drivers with known results tested positive for drugs, up from 28 percent just 10 years earlier. More than half of these drivers had marijuana, opioids, or a combination of the two in their system.
The report, “Drug-Impaired Driving: Marijuana and Opioids Raise Critical Issues for States,” funded by the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility, found that among drug-positive fatally-injured drivers in 2016, 38 percent tested positive for some form of marijuana, 16 percent tested positive for opioids, and four percent tested positive for both marijuana and opioids.
The presence of alcohol in fatally-injured drivers was slightly lower than it was a decade ago, decreasing from 41 percent in 2006 to 38 percent in 2016.
Report author Dr. Jim Hedlund, formerly a senior NHTSA official, explained, “Drugs can impair, and drug-impaired drivers can crash. But it's impossible to understand the full scope of the drugged driving problem because many drivers who are arrested or involved in crashes, even those who are killed, are not tested for drugs. Drivers who are drug-positive may not necessarily be impaired.”
The report also cited frequent poly-drug use. In 2016, 51 percent of drug-positive fatally-injured drivers were found positive for two or more drugs. Alcohol often was in the mix: 49 percent of drivers killed in crashes who tested positive for alcohol in 2016 also tested positive for drugs.
“Alcohol-impaired driving and drug-impaired driving can no longer be treated as separate issues,” said Ralph Blackman, the foundation's president and chief executive officer. “Drunk driving, which was involved in 28 percent of 2016 traffic fatalities, remains a critical issue; however, to curb impaired driving, we have to think about the combination of substances drivers are often putting into their systems at the same time.”
“Too many people operate under the false belief that marijuana or opioids don't impair their ability to drive, or even that these drugs make them safer drivers,” noted the GHSA's executive director, Jonathan Adkins. “Busting this myth requires states to expand their impaired driving campaigns to include marijuana and opioids along with alcohol to show drivers that impairment is impairment, regardless of substance.”
Learn more: ghsa.org/resources/DUID18.
Steven A. Meyerowitz
Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. He may be contacted at [email protected].