Does getting high affect your driving?
One in five young people say no, according to CAA-Quebec spokesperson Annie Gauthier.
“There’s a part of the young adults in Canada and in Quebec that still believe cannabis does not have any impact on their ability to drive,” she said in an interview with CJAD 800.
To test this idea, CAA teamed up with McGill University researchers, and put young cannabis users, aged 18-24, in high tech driving simulator, while under the influence.
“I wouldn’t say the results were surprising,” Gauthier laughed.
In fact, young people show significant signs of impairment for up to five hours after using cannabis, according to the study printed in the Canadian Medical Association Journal’s online sister edition.
"Their response time and the accuracy of their responses [are] decreased after having inhaled cannabis, especially in tasks which require more attention, more focus, and in unexpected situations,” said Tatiana Ogourtsova, a post-doc researcher at McGill University, who served as principle analyst on study.
The study also noted a perspective change in its participants, according to Ogourtsova.
“They do consider themselves worse drivers after having used cannabis,” she said. “They also report a much lower driving ability.”
Gauthier sees this as an encouraging sign.
“We see and we understand that people can realize by themselves that there’s a real danger,” she said. “Hopefully, people will have the reflex to [share the study’s findings].”
While the study focused solely on the 18-24-year-old demographic, it doesn’t mean the findings do not apply to people 25-years and older.
“The message we want to send is, no matter what age you [are], being impaired by cannabis is being impaired by cannabis,” Gauthier said.
She says she hopes the government will continue to ask for studies like this one in the months and years after legalization.