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Spike in Marijuana-Impaired Driving in Maryland, Police Say
(News4)
By Scott MacFarlane, Rick Yarborough and Steve Jones, Feb.
18, 2019
- Maryland State Police told the I-Team they have increased their training for troopers in detecting drug impairment during traffic stops. Though police did not directly link the increase in incidents to decriminalization of the drug, law enforcement officials said marijuana can significantly impair a driver’s abilities behind the wheel.
- The number of vehicle crashes investigated by Maryland State Police that were linked to marijuana nearly doubled from 2017 to 2018. Over the same time period, the number of traffic violations linked to marijuana jumped by nearly 40 percent.
- “There’s a perception that marijuana does not impair you like alcohol. That’s not true. You’re impaired,” said Mary Gaston, whose son was struck and killed by a driver who was under the influence of medicinal marijuana.
- Colorado State Police told the I-Team they’ve seen a 74 percent increase in fatal crashes in the time since the state decriminalized marijuana in 2013. “Marijuana has been a part of that,” a trooper from Colorado said.