Laws legalizing recreational marijuana might lead to more traffic deaths, two new studies suggest, although questions remain about how they might influence driving habits.
Laws legalizing recreational marijuana might lead to more traffic deaths, two new studies suggest, although questions remain about how they might influence driving habits.
Previous research has had mixed results and the new studies, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, can’t prove that the traffic death increases they found were caused by marijuana use.
One study found an excess 75 traffic deaths per year after retail sales began in Colorado in January 2014, compared with states without similar laws. But it found no similar change in Washington state.
The other study looked at those states plus two others that allow recreational pot sales, Oregon and Alaska. If every state legalized recreational marijuana sales, an extra 6,800 people would die each year in traffic accidents, the researchers calculated.
