Underage College
AMHERST, Mass. – Underage male
college students who report using marijuana in the month before they were
surveyed had a high prevalence of driving under its influence and of riding
with a marijuana-using driver, at a rate more than double that of driving or
riding after alcohol use, say researchers from the University of Massachusetts
Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences and University of
Washington pediatrics department.
Among other things, this study
found that among marijuana-using students, 44 percent of males and 9 percent of
females drove after using the drug, and 51 percent of males and 35 percent of
females rode as a passenger with a marijuana-using driver.
Lead author Jennifer Whitehill
at UMass Amherst and colleagues say their findings probably reflect the
widespread myth that driving after marijuana use is safe. The researchers
suggest that developing strategies to combat this belief could help to change
social norms and encourage using a designated driver not only after alcohol use,
but after a driver has used any risky substance. Study findings are in the
current issue of the JAMA Pediatrics.
Whitehill says, “There seems to
be a misconception that marijuana use is totally safe, but as an injury
prevention researcher I dispute that. We’ve done a good job in public health
with messages about the risks of driving after alcohol use. Clearly the idea
not to drink and drive has come through for these students, because we found
only 7 percent engage in that behavior. But our study suggests we must do
better when it comes to marijuana, since we found that 31 percent of
marijuana-using students drive under its influence.”
The health policy professor
adds, “What I feel is, let’s create a culture where we don’t engage in any of
these risk enhancing behaviors before we get behind the wheel.”
With the decriminalization of
marijuana in 16 states and its availability increasing with medical use,
concerns about drug-impaired drivers are more and more relevant, the authors
point out. “The issue of marijuana-impaired driving is particularly salient for
young drivers, for whom the combination of inexperience and substance use
elevates crash risk. If they are part of a culture that accepts the behavior,
their risks increase at a predictable rate that we understand better now,”
Whitehill says.
The results describe the
prevalence, sex differences and risk factors associated with underage college
students’ driving after marijuana use, after using alcohol and riding with a
driver using either substance.
Data for this report came from
an ongoing longitudinal study. The researchers approached 640 incoming freshmen
18–20 years old at the University of Washington and University
of Wisconsin , Madison
Whitehill notes, “Our findings
are consistent with common knowledge and anecdotes indicating that students
drive after using marijuana. And it wasn’t surprising to find that more men in
particular drive after using marijuana compared to women. But our study
quantifies the prevalence, which is useful in setting priorities for public
health action. We also quantified the likelihood that someone will ride as a
passenger with a driver who has used marijuana, and how much it rises with the
proportion of their friends who use marijuana.”
Despite its limitations,
including the small number of nonwhite participants and reliance on
self-reported drug use, the study’s findings represent “an important and timely
contribution” to knowledge about older adolescents’ driving after drug use, the
authors say. Findings “supplement our knowledge that marijuana use increases
the risk of motor vehicle crashes by estimating how common it is for underage students
to have taken this risk with the past 28 days.”
This work was supported by
grants from the NIH’s Common Fund, the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
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